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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 









EVERYDAY WONDERS 






































Everyday Wonders 


By 

LAURA ANTOINETTE LARGE 

Author of “ Little People Who Became Great" 
'*Little Stories of a Big Country ” 


ILLUSTRATED BY PHOTOGRAPHS 





W. A. 

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WILDE 

COMPANY 

BOSTON 


CHICAGO 




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Copyright 1924 by 
W. A. Wilde Company 
All rights reserved 


Made in U. S. A. 



© Cl A 8 0 7 6 0 6 

OCT 31 *24 

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INTRODUCTION 


T HE boys and girls of to-day are living in an 
age of wonders. They may telephone to 
their friends, ride in a fast-moving steamship, or 
listen to strange voices that are carried through the 
air by radio. 

Many children are used to these privileges and do 
not think of them as wonders. A few may even 
suppose that the people who lived in long-ago days 
had the use of the same great inventions which are 
in use to-day. 

Boys and girls who read this book will know when 
many of the great inventions were first given to the 
world and how hard it was to work them out. 

When they have read the book they will know 
that some of the inventions of to-day are wonders of 
the age although in use everywhere. 

And who can tell but that some of the children 
who read this book may be the inventors of a future 

day? If this is true, we shall hope they may have 
5 


6 INTRODUCTION 

occasion to remember with profit some of the ex¬ 
periences of the great inventors about whom they 
once read in the book of “ Everyday Wonders.” 

It is fortunate that we can illustrate these stories 
with such splendid pictures and we are all indebted 
to the following companies who have permitted us 
to use some of their copyrighted photographs. 

International Newsreel Corporation, Keystone 
View Company, Inc., Gilliam Service, Westing- 
house Electric and Mfg. Company. 


CONTENTS 


Ships that Sail in the Air. 

A Palace that Floats on the Water . 

A Light that Cannot be Blown Out 
A Silent Helper in Deep Waters 

A Swift Messenger that Cannot Run and Does 
Not Ride ....... 

A Car that Seems to Move of Itself . 

Pictures that Seem to be Alive .... 
A Servant that Works Without Pay . 

A Machine that Talks and Sings 

Buildings that Could Hold the People of a 
City. 

Horses Made of Iron. 

Avenues in the Air •*•••. 


11 

23 

35 

46 

56 

71 

84 

97 

112 

124 

134 

145 


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ILLUSTRATIONS 


Mail Plane Outfitted with Wireless . Frontispiece 

Opposite page 

S. S. Leviathan Arrives After Breaking Records 


for Ocean Going Liners . . . . .23 

The World’s Largest Searchlight . . . .35 

Minot’s Ledge Station, Massachusetts . . .46 

A Modern Telephone Exchange . . . .56 

One of the Largest Shipments of Ford Cars on 

Record.71 


Cameramen Taking a Picture from an Elevation in 

Order to Get an Unusual Effect . . .84 

Westinghouse Station, KDKA, East Pittsburgh, 
Pennsylvania. “ The Pioneer Broadcasting Sta¬ 
tion of the World ” . . . . . .97 

The ZR Approaching the Woolworth Tower . .124 

“ The DeWitt Chilton,” the First New York Loco¬ 
motive ........ 134 

The First and Latest Locomotive of the Northwest 143 

Brooklyn Bridge . . . . . . .145 



Everyday Wonders 


SHIPS THAT SAIL IN THE AIR 
CROWD of people were gathered in the 



public square of a little village in France 
one day. “ We have a surprise for you,” two 
wealthy brothers of the town had said when they 
gave out the invitations. 

The people were eager to see what was in store 
for them. “ What can the great surprise be? ” 
many asked. 

Every one watched with interest while a great 
linen bag was brought to the square. It hung from 
a rope like a huge limp sail. There was a large 
round opening at the base of this bag, and about it 
the parts of the linen were sewed fast to a wooden 
ring. Beneath the ring was a pit, into which men 


11 



12 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

had put straw, wood, and chopped wool to use in 

making a bonfire. 

“Ready!” shouted one of the brothers. The 
other brother lighted the fuel with a torch and in a 
moment flames shot upward. A thick cloud of 
smoke arose too. The bag began to spread out in 
all directions as it filled with gas and smoke. Then 
it took the shape of a great ball that pulled and 
tugged at the ropes that were trying to hold it. 
The keepers let go and the globe arose into the air 
like a live creature. Up, up, higher and higher it 
went, while the people below clapped their hands 
‘and shouted. 

The balloon went so high it was soon hidden be¬ 
hind a patch of cloud. Then it appeared again. 
The people could see it rising until it reached a 
place in the heavens over a mile above the earth. 

Every one shouted so loud the noise was deafen¬ 
ing. Some men tossed their hats into the air, the 
children danced about, while the women all started 
to talk at once because they were so excited. 

Some farmers were working in the fields about 


SHIPS THAT SAIL IN THE AIR IB 
two miles from the spot where the balloon was 
launched. They did not know what had been go¬ 
ing on in the public square of the French town. 
They did not even know that the brothers had 
promised a surprise for the people. 

While they were at work, the great black balloon 
appeared in the sky and slowly began to come down 
to earth. The humble farmers thought that the 
Evil One was after them. They rushed at the bal¬ 
loon with their pitchforks and scythes! “ The Evil 
One! We will destroy him!” they shouted. As 
the balloon gently struck the ground, they rushed 
at it, making holes and gashes in the linen covering. 

You know what happens to a balloon when just 
one hole is made in it. With many holes and gashes 
the great linen bag was once again limp, and it was 
torn into shreds besides. Some of the farmers tied 
it fast to a horse’s tail and the frightened creature 
galloped with it into the open country. 

This was the first balloon that had ever really 
sailed into the heavens. It was called the Montgol¬ 
fier balloon because it was made by the Montgolfier 


14 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

brothers. This first balloon could stay up in the 
air only a little more than ten minutes. The reason 
for this was the way in which the linen covering was 
made. It had small openings here and there 
through which the gas escaped little by little. 

But people knew that a way had at last been 
found to make a ship sail in the air, and this made 
them very happy. More than this, it set men to 
thinking. They began to try to make ships that 
could sail about in the air for a longer time, and it 
was not long before it was found possible to do this. 

Even then men did not stop working, for they 
were not satisfied. The balloons were at the mercy 
of the wind, which could blow them any way it 
chose. What men wanted was to be able to make 
their way through the air wherever they might wish 
to go. They wanted to fly like birds. 

For many years men had wanted to do this. 
After the first balloon had been made, they tried 
harder than ever to learn to fly with make-believe 
wings. 

One German man named Lilienthal came nearer 


SHIPS THAT SAIL IN THE AIR 15 
to doing this than any of the others. He studied 
the wings of birds and watched the young birds 
fly. Then he made himself a pair of wings and 
tried to learn to fly too. 

Perhaps you can tell what troubles he had when 
he tried to do this. Birds are made for flying and 
can balance themselves with great ease. They are 
small too, and can lift themselves high up into the 
air with little trouble. With men it is different. 
They were not made to fly, and they are so big and 
heavy that it takes a good deal of power for them to 
be able to make their way through air. 

Lilienthal faced toward the wind just as he had 
seen the young birds do when they were learning to 
fly. Then he ran fast and turned his make-believe 
wings up to catch the wind. He thought that he 
would surely fly, but he was only raised from the 
ground a short distance. It pleased him to be able 
to do even this much, but he knew that he must have 
more power. He had a hill made, with a long 
slope. He climbed to the top of the hill and tried 
to glide on his wings down into the valley below. 


16 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
It took him a long time to learn to do this without 
falling to the ground or turning over backwards. 
People gathered to see the “ flying man ” hanging 
through the wooden loop that held the two wings 
together. Some were almost afraid to watch him. 
“ He will fall! How does he dare to go through 
the air like that? ” some of the men cried. Every 
one thought Lilienthal a very brave man, which he 
truly was. 

The more he glided, the more he enjoyed it, and 
the more risks he took. He wanted to be able to 
fly high in the air and to stay up for a long time. 
In trying to do this he forgot his own safety. One 
day he lost his balance while gliding along, and fell 
to the ground with great force. 

The “ flying man ” was killed instantly but he 
was not forgotten. People began to study the 
birds for help in learning to fly, just as Lilienthal 
had done. They learned a great deal about shap¬ 
ing the wings and about placing them so that they 
might best catch the wind. They learned that man 
was never made to fly like a bird. He must have 


SHIPS THAT SAIL IN THE AIR 17 
a ship in which to ride, and this ship must have 
wings and a tail to help move it. 

Finally, two American brothers made the first 
ship that could be guided through the air. The 
brothers were named Wilbur and Orville Wright, 
and they called their ship an aeroplane. They 
called it a biplane too, because it had two wings, or 
planes. One very good thing about it was the gaso¬ 
lene motor which gave it the power to force its way 
through the air wherever the pilot or guide might 
choose to send it. 

Other men set to work on different kinds of aero¬ 
planes, and to-day there are thousands of them in 
use all over the world. Some men made mono¬ 
planes, which are aeroplanes which have one plane 
or wing instead of two. A Frenchman made one 
called the Antoinette that looked like a great bird 
from a distance. People always admired it for its 
beauty and for its swift flight. 

To-day aeroplanes are used a great deal. It may 
be that some child who reads this story has had a 
ride in one. A boy who lives in New York was 


18 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
brave enough to ride in one not long ago. He said 
he felt as if he were riding on a big feather, but he 
was not a bit afraid. 

Most children would like to go high above the 
earth and look down upon the trees and upon the 
roofs of houses. They might even enjoy going 
through the clouds too. This is where aeroplanes 
sometimes turn upside down, because it is hard for 
the pilot to balance the ship with nothing but clouds 
about him. 

The roar of the motor might seem loud to some 
children, but one soon gets used to this. Most 
grown-ups think it is a good thing if the engine is 
working well enough to make a loud noise. One 
danger is that the motor may get out of order and 
stop while the ship is high in the air. Then the 
pilot must balance the aeroplane carefully and try 
to steer to the ground in safety. Sometimes he is 
able to do this, but often he makes a rough landing, 
which gives him a good shaking whether he deserves 
it or not. Most people would rather land without 
the shaking. 


SHIPS THAT SAIL IN THE AIR 19 

Pilots who have been riding in aeroplanes for a 
long while become used to this kind of travel. 
Some like to fly for exhibitions. They loop the 
loop in the air. They dive this way and that 
way. They fly upside down or upon the sides 
of their aeroplanes. Sometimes they write in the 
air with the black plume of smoke from their en¬ 
gines. 

People gather by the thousands to see these ex¬ 
hibitions. They like the speed races and the climb¬ 
ing races too. In New York the pilot of an aero¬ 
plane won a prize by making his ship go through 
the air as fast as two hundred and sixty-six miles 
an hour. This is ever so much faster than the fast¬ 
est train in the world, and faster than the fastest 
racing automobile. 

Not all aeroplanes travel so fast, and not all are 
used for exhibitions. Some are used to carry pas¬ 
sengers, and many carry mail. Between Washing¬ 
ton and New York, Cleveland and Chicago, and as 
far west as San Francisco mail is carried in this 
way, because it saves time. In the cold northern 


20 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
countries this is especially true. In Alaska mail 
can be carried ever so much more quickly through 
the air than upon dog sledges. 

One of the fastest mail-carrying aeroplanes of 
the United States travels eighty-five miles an hour 
and carries fifteen hundred pounds of mail. Since 
it takes forty-two letters to make up a pound, this 
mail aeroplane has a carrying power of sixty-three 
thousand letters! 

These mail aeroplanes are of more use than the 
carrying of mail. They are helping to show the 
people of the country that air routes can be made 
just as railroad routes by land. 

Each year the United States Government is mak¬ 
ing the aeroplane mail service better in every way. 
The men who run the machines have been taught 
to send wireless messages whenever they wish to 
speak to people on land, and they receive replies by 
radio. They are being taught to study the weather 
so that they can guide the aeroplanes more wisely. 
It makes a difference to the pilot of an aeroplane 
how much the wind will be blowing at a certain alti- 


SHIPS THAT SAIL IN THE AIR 21 

tude. Snow and extreme cold in winter call for 
special planning. 

In the World War aeroplanes were of great use 
in carrying messages from one officer to another. 
And, more than this, they were the eyes of the army. 
They darted here and there above the enemy’s 
trenches and marching armies, and then back again 
to their own lines to"tell what they had seen. Some¬ 
times they stopped long enough to bring down one 
of the enemy’s aeroplanes. “ Putting out one of 
the eyes of the enemy,” is what the pilot would re¬ 
port that he had done. At other times bombs were 
dropped upon depots containing supplies, or upon 
bridges. An aeroplane pilot who could bring down 
five of the enemy’s ships was called an ace. Many 
brave men won this name for themselves. 

Changes are being made each year in aeroplanes, 
and in balloons too. Some of the balloons are so 
large that many passengers can be carried with 
safety. Some day there will be balloons to carry 
loads of passengers over the great Atlantic Ocean 
from New York to Liverpool. 


22 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

One swift aeroplane carried two men across the 
Atlantic Ocean a few years ago. It took them less 
than a day to make the trip in this way. A steam¬ 
ship would have taken a week. The men were try¬ 
ing to win a prize when they made this trip. They 
went through great dangers, but they learned many 
things about travelling a long distance in an aero¬ 
plane. 

The pilots had two black cats named Lucky Jim 
and Twinkletoe. The men called them mascots, 
which means that the cats were to try to keep the 
men from harm. If this is true, the mascots did 
their work well. The two pilots arrived in Ireland 
in good shape, and were treated kindly everywhere 
because of their bravery. 

Some day your great-grandchildren may have 
wonderful stories to tell about the aeroplane. 
These new machines may then be used as much as 
automobiles are now used for work and pleasure. 
And how strange it would be if the children were 
given small aeroplanes for Christmas instead of 
velocipedes and bicycles! 


. Leviathan” Arrives after Breaking Records for Ocean Going Liners 






















A PALACE THAT FLOATS ON THE 
WATER 



OU have read in your fairy-story books of 


the wonderful palaces in which the fairy 


kings live with their sons and daughters. Every 
child would like to live in one of these palaces with 
its carpets of gold, its hangings of silver, and its 
walls of candy or sugar. These palaces are never 
visited by real children, nor are children allowed to 
spend much time within the palaces of kings who 
live in our world. Children would not even dare 
to make such a visit. “ Go away from here,” they 
would expect the man at the door to say. 

One palace has been seen and visited by thou¬ 
sands of children. It is not a fairy palace. It is 
not the home of a king or queen of any kind. It is 
found floating upon the water—a great steamship 
which is called a palace because the furnishings are 
so rich and beautiful. 


23 


24 


EVERYDAY WONDERS 


If you were to enter a salon of one of these large 
boats, you would be glad if you were neat and clean 
because this room would be one of the most richly 
furnished rooms you had ever seen. A boy who 
had mud on his shoes would never care to walk 
across the carpets of this room. They are of soft 
velvet, and the chairs and couches are covered with 
soft rich velvet too. 

In the restaurant on the boat the tables are spread 
with white covers, and the dishes and glassware are 
bright and sparkling. Dinner hour on one of the 
great steamships is always a favorite time, for there 
is sure to be something that children like to eat. 
Chicken, ice-cream, fruit, and cake are served often. 
If three meals aren’t enough in one day, one may 
get a glass of milk, a sandwich, or candy at any 
time. Down in the lower part of the boat there 
are tons of beef, and thousands of chickens ready to 
boil or roast. There are tons of flour, fruit, and 
vegetables, and hundreds of gallons of ice-cream. 
Some children who see this great store of food may 
think that a part of it will have to go to waste, but 


A PALACE THAT FLOATS 25 
very little is unused. There are hundreds, some¬ 
times thousands, of passengers on board the ship, 
and the cool ocean breezes give people hearty appe¬ 
tites. 

Most children like the bedrooms. These are al¬ 
ways clean and fresh looking, and there is an elec¬ 
tric light within easy reach. If a child wishes a 
light in his room at night, he can turn on the elec¬ 
tricity without even getting up from his bed. In 
most of the bedrooms there are fans that keep the 
cool sea air moving about in summer. In winter 
the air is warmed before it is forced into the room. 

Out on the decks there are comfortable chairs in 
which people may rest as they look out upon the 
ocean waters. 

Children who like to jump and climb about can 
have great fun in the gymnasium. Some of the 
boats have hobby horses that are moved by electric¬ 
ity, and most of them have trapezes and ladders. 
There are ropes for climbing, and even rubber balls 
of different sizes. For children who like to be in 
the water there is a swimming pool, and at times 


26 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
there are races which the children always like. One 
child learned about the potato race for the first time 
while crossing the ocean on one of the big boats, and 
the wheelbarrow races have been new to many chil¬ 
dren. 

Then there is the music room with its piano and 
orchestra. Every one is pleased when the musi¬ 
cians play “ The Star-Spangled Banner ” or some 
other song that all can sing. 

Children who like to read will find books of all 
kinds in the library. This room is so cozy that one 
feels as if he were reading in his own home, although 
there may be miles of deep sea between him and that 
very pleasant spot. 

There is even a barber shop where many children 
sit up in the big high chairs and get their hair cut 
just as if they were in a barber shop on land. 

Men who like to smoke can go to a smoking room 
or out upon one of the decks. People who like a 
view of flowers as they look out upon the water will 
enjoy one of the garden lounges from which there 
is always a good view of the ocean. Handsome 


A PALACE THAT FLOATS 27 

paintings upon the walls make some of the inside 
rooms pleasant places in which to read or talk with 
friends. There are desks here and there about the 
boat too, so that one may be comfortable while 
writing a letter to a friend. 

Most of the boat palaces are large enough to 
allow many people to travel at a time. The 
Aquitania is one of the largest. If it were to be 
set up on end, it would reach into the sky higher 
than the Woolworth Building in New York. A 
train of eight cars with its large engine and tender 
could rest upon the upper deck of this great boat 
alongside the four huge funnels. The electric 
plant in the vessel is large enough to furnish light 
to a town of two hundred thousand people, which 
is larger than the towns in which live many of the 
children who may read this book. The furnaces 
and boilers of the Aquitania furnish enough steam 
to heat the houses of a small town. There are 
twenty-one boilers which weigh two hundred tons 
each, and there are one hundred and sixty-eight fur¬ 
naces. When the boat is carrying as many pas- 


28 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
sengers as she can, there will be four thousand 
people on board. A great number of towns in the 
world are no larger than this. 

With so many people, the boats must be made 
very safe. Most of the big ships have powerful 
radio machinery, which can be used to call for help 
at any time, and there are strong rowboats as well 
as motor life-boats. The ships have electric fire- 
alarm systems and are well supplied with chemicals 
that can be used to put out fires. The sides and 
bottoms of parts of the great vessels are made up of 
two shells, an inner and an outer shell. These are 
both water-tight. Some of the largest boats have 
tanks that help to keep the ship steady in times of 
heavy storms at sea. 

A few people who do not know a great deal about 
the big steamships are afraid to travel in them. 
People who have learned about them are not afraid. 
They know that most of the great ocean steamers 
can carry them more safely than a railroad train or 
an automobile. Ocean travelling is healthy too. 
When you have played a game of tennis or raced 


A PALACE THAT FLOATS 29 
upon a deck that is being fanned by cool sea breezes, 
you are ready for a hearty meal or a good sleep at 
night. Sick people often get well before they have 
been upon the water many days. 

As you have seen, the x>alace that floats upon the 
water is like a king’s palace about which most chil¬ 
dren have read. Both are beautiful. They are made 
to furnish comfort too. But not all the steamships 
of to-day are like palaces, and it is only within the 
last few years that there have been any at all. 

Years and years ago the only boats men had were 
the logs which floated down the streams. Men 
balanced themselves upon these and were carried 
along for short distances. After a while they fast¬ 
ened several logs together to make a raft. Then 
logs were hollowed out to make crude boats, al¬ 
though these were too heavy to be of great use. 
The boats weighed so much the men could carry but 
little in them. 

The birch-bark canoes that were made later were 
more useful. These were made of the bark of the 
birch tree, and were so light that three tons of furs 


30 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

could be hauled in one of them at a time. The In¬ 
dians were the first people to make this kind of boat. 
They used the bark of the birch tree stretched over 
a frame of red cedar. They stripped the bark from 
the tree in one large piece and sewed the parts to¬ 
gether with the roots of the spruce tree. Gum of 
the pine tree was used for glue. The boats were 
not very strong, and the men who rode in them had 
to carry fresh strips of bark, pieces of spruce root, 
and bits of pine gum so that repairs might be made 
quickly should the thin bark be torn. 

People were contented with these boats for a 
while, but they soon wanted to be able to go faster 
and to travel more safely through the water. A 
heavily laden birch-bark canoe could be made to go 
little more than four or five miles an hour. Chil¬ 
dren whose parents have automobiles know how 
slow this is. Most automobiles go as slowly as four 
miles an hour only when they are getting started, 
or when going along busy streets where there are 
many automobiles, cars, and wagons in line. It 
was no wonder that, as time went on, people set 


A PALACE THAT FLOATS 31 
about making boats that could travel more quickly 
in safety. 

For a while wooden boats were used. These 
were stronger and safer than canoes, but could not 
be made to go fast enough, and it was hard to row 
or paddle them through the water. 

Men soon got the idea of letting the wind help 
to move their boats. The sailing vessel was then 
put into use. The first sailboats could carry sixty 
tons instead of three or four tons carried by the 
canoes and bateaux. They could go faster than 
any of the boats that had been used, and they were 
safer. Even hostile Indians were not to be feared 
by the men in these sailboats, because large guns 
and cannons could be carried by the sailors. 

It was a sailing vessel which carried Christopher 
Columbus from the shores of Europe to American 
soil, as you know. Columbus rode in this kind of 
ship because it was the best there was at that time. 
It took him two months to reach the new land 
which he discovered, and there were few comforts 
on board the ship in which he sailed. If he had 


32 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
ever ridden upon a fast-moving, comfortable steam¬ 
boat, such as we have to-day, he would never have 
chosen a sailing vessel in which to make his trip. 

In the time of Christopher Columbus no steam¬ 
boats were in use in the whole world. It was more 
than three hundred years later that Robert Fulton 
worked out his plans for a steamboat and put the 
first one into use. , 

From that time on, the boats began to be made 
larger and better in every way, although for a long 
time not any of them could have been called a pal¬ 
ace. It was only after the power of steam had been 
used for a long time that the very large and beau¬ 
tifully furnished boats began to be made. 

The boats of to-day can travel ever so much faster 
than the early boats too. “ Walks-in-water ” an 
Indian said when he saw Robert Fulton’s first boat 
making its way up the Hudson River. “ Runs-in- 
water ” this Indian might say if he could see the 
boats of to-day. When the first steamboat moved 
up the Hudson River, the farmers who stood upon 
the banks were almost frightened. They thought 


A PALACE THAT FLOATS 33 
Robert Fulton’s Clermont a very strange boat. It 
had a cloud of smoke over it by day. At night the 
sky above was lighted by the fire of its engines. 

The people did not know what a great and won¬ 
derful power was being put into use in this boat 
made by Robert Fulton. They did not know that 
some day this wonderful power could be made to 
do greater things. It took Robert Fulton thirty- 
two hours to go from New York to Albany in the 
Clermont . In one of the boats of to-day this 
same trip can be made in nine and a half hours. 
One of the Hudson River boats called the Hendrick 
Hudson carries as many as five thousand passengers 
while making the trip. 

Every year thousands and thousands of people 
make the trip across the ocean in comfort because 
of the great boats that are run by steam. Each ship¬ 
owner wants a large number of passengers on his 
boat, and for this reason the ships are made as beau¬ 
tiful and as comfortable as the owner can afford. 
If one steamship company adds a new luxury to 
what it has to offer the passengers, other companies 


34 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
know that they too must do more for the people. 
In this way the boats have been getting more and 
more luxurious until we have to-day the great 
steamships that are like the homes of kings and 


princes. 


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A LIGHT THAT CANNOT BE BLOWN 
OUT 


M ANY thousands of years before you came 
to live upon this earth there lived a 
strange race called prehistoric men. 

A prehistoric man happened to rub his thick skin 
robe with a piece of amber one day. He was sur¬ 
prised to see that sparks came from the amber. 
His friends rubbed their garments with the stone, 
and they too could see the same kind of sparks. A 
little later they noticed that the amber stone could 
be made to pick up pieces of thread or small ob¬ 
jects. The prehistoric men were not wise enough 
to know what caused the amber to do these things. 
They thought that the stone was magic, and many 
of the people were afraid of it. 

After many years people found that when they 

rubbed a piece of glass rod with silk or leather, 
35 


36 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

bright little sparks would appear. When they 
rubbed catskin over hard rubber, the same sparks 
were seen. 

By this time people were no longer afraid of these 
sights. They called the sparks electricity, and they 
became interested in looking for other signs of the 
strange power. 

Still later, when Benjamin Franklin grew to be 
a man, he got to thinking about the lightning that 
was often seen in the sky. He said: “ I believe that 
the lightning is electricity. I think that I can make 
some of it come down to the earth.” 

The people thought this a very dangerous thing 
to do. “ Do not risk your life,” many of them said. 

Benjamin Franklin knew that there was danger 
in trying to work with lightning, but he felt that he 
knew a way to make the work safe enough to try. 
He made a kite of silk, and to one end he fastened 
an iron point. To the other end of the kite he 
fastened a string. The upper part of this string 
was of twine but the lower part was of silk. Just 
between the twine and the silk he attached a key. 


A LIGHT NOT BLOWN OUT 37 

When the thunder began to sound in the heavens, 
Benjamin Franklin went out into the country to 
let the kite fly. At first there were no signs of 
electricity, but in a short time he noticed the loose 
fibres of the string begin to bristle and he held his 
knuckles to the key. As he did this, bright sparks 
could be plainly seen. Rain began to fall, and soon 
many large sparks could be drawn from the key. 
Franklin knew then that lightning was really elec¬ 
tricity in the sky, and that it could be made to come 
down to the earth. 

After this, men found that there is electricity in 
the air even when there is no thunderstorm. Then 
they began to find out how to use this great power. 
They found that although it could not be seen and 
was very quiet, it could be made to do a great deal 
of work. Soon they discovered that it could be 
made to run along wires and go wherever they 
wished it to go. They learned that it likes its home 
very, very well. If a current of electricity is sent 
along a wire from a certain place, it will return to 
that place as fast as it can, if there is another wire 


38 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

to carry it back. The electricity is so eager to get 
back home that it will push along as fast as it can. 
This is why men can make it do so much work for 
them. 

If a man wishes a stove heated, he will make it 
hard for the electricity to push through the wires 
that are in the stove. The electricity will want to 
get back home quickly. It will push through the 
wires so hard that heat will be produced. Stoves 
for cooking and for warming cars are heated in this 
way. 

Electric irons are heated in much the same man¬ 
ner. No doubt your mother is glad that electricity 
will heat her iron for her. There was a time when 
irons had to be placed upon a hot stove in order to 
become heated, and much time and strength were 
lost in going back and forth with them. Besides 
this, they would be very hot at one time and cool at 
another. With electricity the heat can be kept 
more even. 

Some women have curling irons that are heated 
by electricity. Coffee percolators may be heated 


A LIGHT NOT BLOWN OUT 39 
in the same way. One can make coffee while seated 
at the breakfast table when an electric percolator is 
used. 

Electricity is used for ringing door-bells, while 
trains run by it are found in many parts of the 
country. These trains are much cleaner than those 
run by a steam engine which sends out great clouds 
of black smoke. 

What electricity does for us by means of the tele¬ 
phone and the telegraph is very well known. Some 
boys have telegraph sets of their own, and can 
tell just how electricity is used in this way. How 
it helps to make our radio sets of use is understood 
by many boys and girls. 

Most children do not know much about electric 
furnaces, but their fathers can tell about the work 
that these do. With electric furnaces a very 
strong heat can be made. This is used to act upon 
metals that could not be used unless they were 
changed by the action of heat. Aluminum is made 
in this way. When your mother cooks your oat¬ 
meal or cream of wheat for breakfast it may be 


40 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

that she uses a double boiler made of this very useful 
and lasting material. Perhaps she fries bacon in 
an aluminum frying pan. 

And what boy has not owned a flash light of some 
kind? These are made in many shapes and sizes, 
and can be bought for a small amount of money. 
Some boys have had a vest-pocket flash light which 
is so small that it can be carried in a pocket or in a 
lady’s pocketbook. One has but to press a button 
to get a beam of light that is bright enough for 
many uses. For Boy Scouts or other campers this 
kind of flash light is very handy to own. Campers 
are often awakened in the darkest part of the night 
by strange noises. If it is in a part of the country 
where there are bears and wolves, a boy is glad to 
be able to light up his tent quickly. 

Some flash lights are made to give colored lights 
that can be used for signalling. Boy Scouts 
also make use of these at times. Some people 
like to use a flash light when they wish to see the 
face of a clock at night or find a keyhole in the 
dark. 


A LIGHT NOT BLOWN OUT 41 

Almost any child could name other ways in which 
the wonderful power of electricity is used. Most 
boys know how it can be made to come from dif¬ 
ferent kinds of batteries. A few can tell how it 
is made by means of a dynamo. Trains and boats 
are run by electricity coming from this source. 

Many children know how to rub electricity into a 
newspaper. They lay a strip of newspaper flat 
upon a table and hold it down firmly at one end. 
Then they rub the paper rapidly with the finger 
nails of their free hand. When they try to take up 
the paper, the electricity which they have made 
causes it to stick to the table almost as if it were 
pasted there. 

It is just as easy to make a glass rod pick up bits 
of thread or paper, just as the men who lived 
thousands of years ago were able to do. One has 
only to rub a glass rod or a stick of sealing wax 
with a silk handkerchief and hold one end near 
some bits of paper. These will fly up as if there 
were an unseen force pulling them toward the glass 
rod or the sealing wax. The kind of electricity at 


42 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

work upon the paper is most easily made in dry 
weather and during the winter months. No doubt 
some of you have found out about this. 

Perhaps the most useful work that electricity 
does is to furnish light. Before the electric 
light came into use people used candles, kerosene 
lamps, or gas. As you know, the electric light is 
ever so much better. It is safer too. No matches 
are needed to make the light. When gas or kero¬ 
sene is burned, the air is made impure, and there is 
more heat than when an electric light is used. And 
the electric light cannot be blown out while the glass 
bulb around it remains unbroken. Blow as hard 
as you can upon the electric-light bulb in your bed¬ 
room to-night and see if you can blow out the light. 
You will find that this cannot be done, although 
you may be able to blow very hard. 

Years ago there were no electric lights, but there 
was a clever man in the country who knew more 
about electricity than any other man. Thomas 
Edison was his name. 

Mr. Edison said: “ Electricity is a wonder 


A LIGHT NOT BLOWN OUT 43 
worker. It can be made to light our lamps for 
us.” 

“ This would be a great comfort,” men thought, 
but few of them believed that a way could be found 
to bring about this great change in lighting. 

Thomas Edison had to work hard to do what he 
had said could be done. He even sent men to 
Japan and South America, who brought back with 
them thousands of different kinds of plant stems. 
Mr. Edison wanted to use one of these to make a 
fine thread to put inside the electric-light bulb. He 
wanted the thread to be very strong and hard for 
the electricity to push through. He knew then that 
it would have to push so hard that the thread 
would become heated and light would be made to 
shine. 

After working a long time Mr. Edison at last 
found the right kind of fibre thread to use. He 
was then able to make the “ incandescent light ” 
that we have to-day. Incandescent is a long word 
which means “ heated to a white glow.” If the 
light in your bulb is not too bright for you to see 


44 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
clearly, you will notice that it does glow with a 
white light. 

Besides the incandescent light Mr. Edison made 
arc lights too. These are strong and bright and 
are used for engines, for lighting streets or large 
halls, and wherever a powerful search-light is 
needed. They are found often on top of the pilot 
house on a ship, while in war time many ships find 
these powerful search-lights very useful. Steam 
and electric locomotives as well as interurban cars 
use the arc lamp for a headlight too. 

The incandescent light is better than the arc light 
for home use because it has a softer glow and is less 
glaring. Thousands and thousands of the incan¬ 
descent lights are in use all over the country. 

If a prehistoric man could see the electric light 
that we have to-day, he would surely run away from 
it at first. “ Magic! Magic! ” he would cry. Then 
it may be that he would fall upon his knees and wor¬ 
ship the light because it would seem like some kind 
of a mighty power or hidden spirit. 

Not even the smallest children of to-day are 


A LIGHT NOT BLOWN OUT 45 
afraid of the electric light. The older children find 
it very useful when they are doing their home work 
in arithmetic or spelling, or when they are reading 
a story at bedtime. It would be hard to find any 
one who is not glad that electricity has been made to 
furnish light for us. 


A SILENT HELPER IN DEEP WATERS 


PON a lonely rock off the northeast coast of 



England there stands a lighthouse in the 


midst of deep sea waters. For many years the 
light from its tower has shone far out upon the sea 
in a friendly way. “ Be careful in these waters. 
There are dangerous rocks about,” the friendly 
light seems to say. Year after year the quiet light¬ 
house stands ready to warn any sailors that may 
come near the treacherous waters. Hundreds of 
lives have been saved and many valuable ships have 
been saved from destruction because of this light¬ 
house helper. 

A family of three once lived in the lighthouse to 
keep it in good order and to watch the light in the 
tower. There was the father. Mr. Darling was 
his name. There was the mother. And there was 
the daughter, Grace. 

When the waters were stormy Mr. Darling 


46 


A Silent Helper in Deep Waters 
Minot’s Ledge Light Station, Massachusetts 














Mail Plane Outfitted with Wireless 
















































































































' 






































A SILENT HELPER 47 

would not leave the light alone by day or by night. 
He knew that he must be on watch so that the light¬ 
house might do its work well. He was a faithful 
lighthouse keeper. Not only this. He taught his 
daughter to be brave and ready to do her part. 

It was well that Grace Darling had been taught 
to be brave, for there were dangers all about her 
lighthouse home. The sea waters became very 
angry at times, and they beat against the rock as if 
they meant to wash it away or dash it into pieces. 

One night a terrible storm came up. The sea 
roared and the waves beat upon the rock with a 
mighty force. The cold waters of the northern sea 
leaped into the air. There seemed to be water 
everywhere. 

The lighthouse stood silent but firm in the midst 
of the terrible storm. It seemed to be trying to 
make the friendly beams of its tower light reach 
farther than ever across the waters. 

Mr. Darling, the lighthouse keeper, and his 
daughter, Grace, were awake and on the lookout 
for some one who might be in trouble. 


48 


EVERYDAY WONDERS 


“ I do hope no ships try to pass through these 
waters to-night,” Grace and her father must have 
thought as they heard the roaring sounds all about 
than. “ The rocks are dangerous enough in fair 
weather, but in a storm like this it would go hard 
with even the best of ships.” 

From time to time the keeper and his daughter 
looked through the big marine glasses to see if 
there were any ships in sight. For a long while 
nothing could be seen but the dark shadowy waters 
lighted by the rays that came from the lighthouse 
tower. 

Grace Darling was about to leave her father for 
the night when she gave a cry, for she had caught 
sight of a ship. Not a strong sturdy ship plow¬ 
ing its way through the waves! It was a poor 
wrecked vessel that had broken in two upon one of 
the big rocks. 

Grace Darling almost shouted. “ A wreck! A 
wreck! ” she cried. She looked through the glasses 
eagerly. “ People are clinging to the ship. They 
will drown! Father! Father! What shall we do ? ” 


A SILENT HELPER 49 

she cried. “We must save them! We must save 
them! ” 

Mr. Darling was dismayed at the terrible sight, 
and alarmed at the thought of launching a rescue 
boat at such a time. He knew that he could not 
row a boat alone upon such a sea, and he hated the 
thought of allowing his only daughter to risk her 
life. 

Grace Darling was not afraid. “ I will go with 
you. You must let me go! ” she cried. 

There was no time to lose. Mr. Darling gave 
his daughter an oar and he himself took one. 
Upon the racing waters they launched their boat. 
They forgot about their own danger, so eager were 
they to rescue the people who would surely be lost 
if help did not come quickly. 

After the hardest struggle that Grace Darling 
or her father had ever known, the little boat reached 
the spot where the people were clinging to the pieces 
of the broken vessel. There were eight men and 
one woman. 

Even then Grace Darling and her father did not 


50 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
think of their own danger. They took four of the 
men and the one woman first. Then they returned 
to the wrecked boat a second time for the four men 
who were left. It takes but a short time to tell of it, 
but it was a terrible task. The little boat almost 
upset many times, and Mr. Darling and his daugh¬ 
ter were panting from the hard work of pushing 
it through the rough waters. Grace Darling was 
drenched to the skin and numb with the cold long 
before she reached the lighthouse the second time. 
She was faint too, and could scarcely stand when 
she left the boat. 

But there was a happy crowd in the lighthouse 
that night. One of the rescued men told how the 
lighthouse had helped to keep them from the rocks 
for a long time, but that the wind and waves had 
been too strong for the vessel. Time and time 
again they all told how thankful they were that the 
lighthouse had been built on the lonely spot, and 
they all praised the keeper and his brave daughter. 

One could tell hundreds of true stories like this 
one. All over the world the lighthouse quietly does 


A SILENT HELPER 51 

its best to keep sailors out of dangerous waters. If 
a boat is wrecked, the lighthouse keeper is always 
ready to risk his life to help in whatever way he can. 
Thousands of people can ride with greater safety 
upon the oceans and seas because of the work of the 
lighthouse and its keeper. 

As you may suppose, it is no easy task to build a 
lighthouse. To begin with, it must be made strong. 
Lighthouses that have been carelessly made have 
been known to be crushed by the waves as if they 
were nothing but egg-shells! Still others have been 
broken off just as you might break a stick of mac¬ 
aroni. 

In one gale that blew about the Mount Desert 
lighthouse in Maine, a boulder of stone weighing 
seventy-five tons was moved sixty feet. With such 
strong waves to fight, the lighthouse must be very, 
very strong if it is to stand. This is what makes 
it such a wonderful piece of work. It must be 
built in a place where building is difficult, and yet 
it must be strong so that it may be able to hold its 
own against the strength of the waves. 


52 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

Years ago many of the lighthouses were made of 
wood, but this was found to be unsafe because of 
fire. Besides, the waves had the best of it when 
they had only to fight the strength of wood. 

Men soon found that lighthouses made of stone 
were safer and more lasting. To-day some of them 
have stone walls seven or eight feet thick, with foun¬ 
dations that are sunk deep into the rock or sand. 
Most of the lighthouses are built like an oak tree, 
with a broad, flaring bottom and more slender 
upper part. Mother Nature plans wisely, and 
when she made the oak tree she made it the right 
shape to bear a heavy weight of leaves and branches. 
Lighthouses built in this way are strong like the oak 
tree. 

Still others are made of iron, and are built in a 
queer shape, with legs like those of a spider. They 
have iron piles upon which the whole structure rests. 
These are the long legs of the spider. The light- 
keeper’s home is the body of the spider, with a single 
bright eye of light at the top. 

The waves and tides pass through the legs of the 


A SILENT HELPER 53 

spider lighthouse and do not destroy the building 
overhead. Many of these iron lighthouses have 
been built along the southern coast of the United 
States where there is no danger of moving cakes of 
ice filling up the spaces between the iron piles. 

Lighthouses are hard to build not only because 
they must be made so strong, but because it is diffi¬ 
cult to even lay a foundation for any kind of house 
in the places chosen for some of them. Often the 
foundation must be laid upon a rock that is covered 
with water. This rock may be in a part of the 
ocean where great strong waves come from all sides, 
so that the slightest wind makes a high sea. The 
Eddystone Lighthouse off the coast of England 
was built upon such a rock. It took years to build 
it because the rock upon which it was to rest was 
beaten by waves most of the time. To make 
the work harder, the stone and other material of 
which the house was to be built, had to be carried 
over miles of choppy sea. Then it had to be kept 
afloat in a boat until the sea waters were calm 
enough for the men to work upon the rock. 


54 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

Minot’s Lighthouse at the entrance to Boston 
Harbor was another hard one to build. It took 
three years before a single stone could be laid, and 
five years before the first light could be made to 
shine. This tower stands above the water twice as 
high as your house, but in storms the spray reaches 
to the very top and in winter covers the glass of the 
lantern with ice. When Mr. Longfellow, the 
poet, saw this lighthouse he said it looked like a 
huge cannon rising out of the sea. It does look 
like a great cannon, but it is stronger than the larg¬ 
est and strongest cannon ever made. 

Over two thousand years ago men saw the need 
of lighthouses to help sea travellers, and one was 
built off the coast of Egypt, which stood for more 
than a thousand years. To be sure, this had no 
light such as one finds in the lighthouse of to-day. 
It burned fires of wood by night, and the smoke 
served as a guide to the sailors by day. 

Since that long-ago time men have been building 
better lighthouses each year. Fish-oil was burned 
for a time in the lamps. Kerosene is now used. 


A SILENT HELPER 55 

The houses are bigger and stronger, and men have 
found better ways of building them in the most 
dangerous places where they are needed the most. 

The United States has more than one thousand 
of these silent but useful helpers along her coast, 
and more than five million dollars a year is spent to 
keep them in good running order. 

It costs money to maintain the lighthouse with its 
faithful keeper, but most countries are glad to help 
the sailors who must travel upon dangerous sea 
waters. 


A SWIFT MESSENGER THAT CANNOT 
RUN AND DOES NOT RIDE 


I F you could ask your great-grandfather how 
messages were sent when he was young, he 
might point to his feet and say: “ My child, these 
were the messengers most often used. If one 
wished to send a message farther than he could 
walk, a man travelling on horseback or in a wagon 
or coach would take it for him.” 

“ What about the telephone? ” some child might 
ask. 

Great-grandfather would smile at this. “ When 
I was a boy there were no telephones,” he would 
say. “ If some one had told me that my great- 
grandson would be able to talk to some one living 
miles away, I should have thought him a dreamer.” 

Your great-grandfather would be right about all 
56 































A SWIFT MESSENGER 57 
this. When he was young, the man who invented 
the telephone was only a little boy himself. He 
could play hide and seek or fly a kite, but at that 
time he had not thought of making a telephone. 

This boy, named Alexander Graham Bell, lived 
in Scotland. His father was an inventor who 
worked out a way to teach deaf and dumb children 
to hear by watching the movements of the lips of 
other people who were speaking. Alexander heard 
his father talk about this and other inventions and 
watched him at work. Alexander thought his 
father a very wonderful man. No doubt the boy 
learned a great deal from the busy, hard-working 
father. 

All boys will grow, as you know, and Alexander 
was like the rest. The time came when he knew all 
the arithmetic, spelling, and writing that was taught 
in the eight grades of the grammar school. 

He went to high school, and in a few years had 
learned geometry, physical geography, Latin, 
physics, and the other hard studies taught there. 
He went to the University of Edinburgh, but, even 


58 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

when old enough to do this, the thought of making a 

telephone had not come to him. 

Later he came to the United States and became a 
teacher in a school for the deaf and dumb in Boston. 
Here he kept trying to find out better ways to help 
deaf persons to hear. As time went on he worked 
out a better plan than his father and grandfather 
had used. He taught his pupils to watch the posi¬ 
tion of the lips and other organs used in speaking, 
and in this way they learned to know the sounds by 
sight. Then they learned to know when several 
sounds were being spoken together. After several 
lessons the pupil could tell all that a person was 
saying by looking at his moving lips. 

Alexander Graham Bell knew a great deal, you 
see, about how people talk, and about how people 
hear with the human ear. It was what he knew 
about the ear that gave him his first idea for the 
wonderful invention of the telephone. He had not 
been teaching very long before he began to wish 
that he might be the first man to work out a good 
way in which to send spoken words that could be 


A SWIFT MESSENGER 59 

heard over a wire. One pupil helped him more 
than any other by her kind words and her interest in 
his work. She was a young girl named Mabel 
Hubbard, who had been very sick with scarlet fever 
when a baby. Since that time she had been unable 
to hear or to speak until Mr. Bell had become her 
teacher. The father was grateful for what had 
been done for his daughter, and he, too, helped Mr. 
Bell in his work with the telephone. When Mabel 
Hubbard became the wife of her teacher she did 
more than she had ever done to help him to carry 
on the work of inventing a telephone. 

Mr. Bell made his first telephone at odd hours 
after he had finished teaching for the day. He made 
it out of an old cigar box, several hundred feet of 
wire, and two magnets which he had taken from a 
toy fish pond. You see, at that time he was poor 
and had very little money to spend on materials. 

One day when he had been working for many 
months, he told his assistant to listen at the end of 
the rude telephone which had been made to reach 
from the attic to the basement. Alexander Bell 


60 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

went upstairs to the attic and telephoned to the 
man in the basement. “ Come up here,” he said. 
“ I want you.” 

The assistant was surprised to hear the words, 
which were the first ever made to sound over any 
wire. Alexander Bell had at last made the first 
speaking telephone! 

It was a great day for Mr. Bell, but he did not 
spend too much time in rejoicing. He knew that 
there was still a great deal of work to be done. 
First he wanted to get the invention ready to show 
at the great Exposition which was to be held in 
Philadelphia that year, which was the year 1876. 
People were to come to this from all parts of the 
country, and Mr. Bell knew that it would be a good 
place to show the telephone for the first time. 

When the day came for the exhibits to be en¬ 
tered for the Exposition, Mr. Bell had the new tele¬ 
phone ready as he had hoped. The judges were 
busy all day, and he could not see them at all until 
late in the afternoon before the opening day. The 
judges were tired and wanted to go home. They 


A SWIFT MESSENGER 61 

did not care to listen to the young man who stood 
before them timidly and said that he had found a 
way in which the human voice might be carried over 
wires by electricity. 

A gentleman from Brazil happened to be stand¬ 
ing in the doorway of the room in which the judges 
and the young man were talking together. Don 
Pedro was the man’s name. He was the Emperor 
of Brazil, and a famous man. 

Don Pedro saw how eager the judges seemed to 
be to go away without looking over Mr. Bell’s in¬ 
vention. He was very angry. He stepped into 
the room and examined the new instrument. Then 
he turned to the judges and asked if he might not 
be allowed to try out the new telephone himself. 

The judges had to be polite to the ruler of a 
country. “ You may try it,” they said to 
him. Mr. Bell went to one end of the wire which 
was in another room and spoke into the transmit¬ 
ter. Don Pedro heard plainly what the young man 
said, and praised him for his work in inventing an 
instrument that could carry the sound of the human 


62 


EVERYDAY WONDERS 
voice. “This is a wonderful invention!’* he said 
to Mr. Bell. 

The judges decided that they had made a mistake 
in neglecting to try out the instrument. They said 
that Mr. Bell might show his invention at the Ex¬ 
position, although even then they thought it more 
of a toy than a work that could be of great use to 
the people. 

Many looked at the new telephone in the days 
that followed. Strange to say, there were still many 
who could not see what a great piece of work it was. 
Like the judges, they called it a toy and thought 
little of it. Others were like Don Pedro. They 
said, “ It is a wonder of wonders.” Which of these 
people were right, no doubt you can tell. 

By the time the year 1877 came, the telephone 
was being improved so that the public could use it. 
Still people did not know how much it could do for 
them, and it was not used a great deal. A long¬ 
distance line was built from Boston to Salem, which 
was sixteen miles. Mr. Bell himself thought that 
twenty miles was as far as the telephone could ever 


A SWIFT MESSENGER 63 

be made to carry the sound of the human voice. 
This seemed far enough to him at that time. His 
first instrument could carry sound only from the 
basement to the second story of a single building. 
He must have been pleased later when long-dis¬ 
tance lines were made to reach across the country. 
And how pleased he must have been when other 
countries of the world began to use his invention. 
Japan was the first, and others followed. To-day 
the telephone is used in far-away Abyssinia. The 
children of that country laugh at the monkeys which 
swing on the telephone cables. The elephants have 
their own use for the poles too. They seem to think 
that poles make good scratching posts. The chil¬ 
dren always laugh when they see these animals 
scratch their backs on the telephone poles. 

In our country the people who once thought the 
telephone a toy now know that it can be made to 
do a great work. 

Boys and girls of to-day know how true this is. 
Every day men, women, and children are able to 
save time and money because of this great invention 


64 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
that is now well known to be a wonder of won¬ 
ders. 

When your mother wants to order groceries she 
does not have to go to the store, nor even wait for 
you to go. If she is in a hurry, she can telephone 
her order and the grocer will deliver the goods. 

If your house were to catch fire, some one would 
telephone, and the clanging of the firemen’s gongs 
would be heard coming up the street in a few min¬ 
utes. 

If the baby were to be taken sick in the night, the 
doctor could be at his bedside in less time than it 
would take for some one to walk to the doctor’s 
office. A man living in New York can talk to an¬ 
other man living in San Francisco, which is three 
thousand miles away, without leaving his office 
chair! 

We have become used to the comforts which the 
telephone brings, and we often forget that we are 
enjoying them. Now and then our telephone gets 
out of order. How we miss it! “ The ’phone is 
out of order,” we say in great dismay. “We must 


A SWIFT MESSENGER 65 
have it repaired at once. We cannot get along 
without it! ” We have to ask a neighbor to allow 
us to use his telephone, or it may be that we waste 
a good deal of time in going on errands when a 
few words carried along by electricity might have 
saved us all the trouble. 

When the repair man comes to the door at last, 
mother lets him into the house in a very pleasant 
manner. We are all glad to know that we shall 
soon have the use of the telephone again. 

Many people would rather do without their auto¬ 
mobile than try to do without a telephone. It may 
be that most of the children who are reading this 
book would rather keep the automobile and let the 
telephone go if they had to make a choice. Ask 
your mother which she would rather do. 

It is true that it was possible to send messages 
from one place to another before the invention of 
the telephone. By means of the telegraph mes¬ 
sages could be sent, but they were written and not 
spoken. The telephone is greater than the tele¬ 
graph because with it one can speak to another just 


66 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
as if face to face. It is almost always better to be 
able to speak back and forth and hear the sound of 
another’s voice. 

Strange to say, another man had been trying to 
make a telephone while Mr. Bell was working on 
his model of one. Mr. Elisha Gray of Boston was 
the man. If Mr. Elisha Gray had finished his 
work just two hours sooner, he would have been the 
first man to invent a telephone that could be used. 
As it was, he was just two hours late in sending 
word to the government about his invention. Mr. 
Bell had let the government know about his work 
two hours earlier! 

As you may know, when a man works out an in¬ 
vention, if he is wise, he will let the government 
know at once. The government keeps a record of 
the work and gives the inventor a patent, which for¬ 
bids other men to manufacture the invention for a 
number of years unless the inventor wishes it. 

If the government did not do this, a man might 
spend many years trying to work out something 
new. He might spend all of his money. When 


A SWIFT MESSENGER 67 

the invention was finished, some other man might 
copy it and sell it without giving the inventor any of 
the money. This would be unfair, and most men 
could not afford to give up a great deal of time and 
money to work out an invention. 

As it is, a patent on a useful invention often 
brings great wealth. Mr. Bell became a very 
wealthy man. Mr. Edison is also wealthy. Per¬ 
haps you could name others who have made money 
because of being able to make something new and 
useful. 

Some children will want to know how the tele¬ 
phone does its work. It would take a great deal of 
time for you to read all about just how it is done. 
Your teacher or parents may be willing to tell you 
as much as you wish to know about it. When you 
throw a stone into a pond, ripples in circles may be 
seen going out in all directions. Your voice makes 
these tremblings or vibrations in the air whenever 
you speak. When you talk into a telephone these 
vibrations of air strike a small piece of metal that 
trembles too, and helps to send electric waves over 


68 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

a wire. A metal piece on the telephone of the per¬ 
son to whom you wish to speak is made to tremble 
by the electricity, and the person who is listening 
gets your message. This is done almost faster than 
it takes to tell it, so swift is the telephone in doing 
the work. 

The swift-running man or boy living in your 
great-grandfather’s time could never carry a mes¬ 
sage with such speed. A man on horseback could 
not do the work so well. Our great express trains 
that rush across the country are not swift enough 
to carry messages hundreds of miles in a few 
seconds of time, as the telephone is able to do. 

It is true that the telephone must have some help. 
When you ring your bell and hold the receiver to 
your ear, you will hear a voice which asks, “ Num¬ 
ber please? ” 

This is the voice of the girl who sits in an office 
before a telephone that can be made to connect with 
yours and many others. As soon as you take the 
receiver from the hook a little light shines over your 
number that is printed upon a board called a switch- 


A SWIFT MESSENGER 69 

board in front of which the telephone girl sits. 
When she sees the light she knows that some one 
using your telephone wishes to send a message. 
When you have given her the number you want, she 
connects that wire with your telephone and rings a 
little bell. When the person who answers the bell 
takes the receiver from the hook, another light ap¬ 
pears on the switchboard. When the receivers are 
hung up again, the little lights go out and the tele¬ 
phone girl knows that you have finished talking. 
She then disconnects the two lines. 

Some children know how to make a kind of tele¬ 
phone. They fasten a string tightly to the bottoms 
of two cans. One end of each can they leave open. 
The open end of a can is held to one child’s ear, 
while the second child talks into the open end of the 
other can. The one who is listening can hear what 
is being said if only a short distance away. 

This kind of telephone would not work well for 
long distances. Your mother would have to send 
you for the groceries, and your house might be 
burned to the ground before the firemen could get 


70 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
the alarm, if this were the only way in which mes¬ 
sages could be sent. 

The telephone that has electricity for a helper is 
a swifter messenger and a better one. 



One of the Largest Shipments of Ford Cars on Record 












A CAR THAT SEEMS TO MOVE OF 
ITSELF 



HERE once lived a farmer boy near the 


city of Detroit, Michigan. Every morn¬ 


ing this boy walked two and a half miles to school, 
and every afternoon there were the two and a half 
miles to walk before he reached his country home. 

This boy was named Henry Ford—a strong boy, 
and one who was willing to work, as you shall see. 
Even when he had studied all day at school and had 
walked the five miles Henry Ford was ready for 
more work. He helped his father about the farm 
or busied himself about the workshop which he had 
made for himself. Here he had a few crude tools 
which he had also made. There was a vise, a bow- 
string-driven lathe, and a rudely built forge. The 
first tool Henry Ford ever made was not in the 
workshop, but he never forgot it, because he had 
made it with great care. When he was a very small 


71 


72 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

boy he made his first tool out of one of his grand¬ 
mother’s knitting needles. He heated the needle 
until it was red hot. Then he plunged it into a bar 
of soap as he bent it into shape. When he had 
whittled a wooden handle to which the needle was 
fastened, the tool was done. 

Henry Ford liked to make tools, and he made 
some that many a boy would have been proud to 
own. What he liked best of all was to take pieces 
of machinery apart so that he might have the fun 
of putting them together again. In this way he 
learned about machinery, and the more he learned 
the more interested he became. He soon came to 
have one great wish. He wanted to learn how to 
make something that would go. 

Before Henry Ford was seventeen years of age 
he left his father’s farm and went to work in a me¬ 
chanic’s shop in Detroit, Michigan. Here he 
learned more about mechanics, and he spent many 
of his spare hours in the workshop which he again 
fitted up for himself. By the time he was twenty- 
one years of age he had built a farm locomotive 


A CAR THAT MOVES' OF ITSELF 73 
mounted on iron wheels taken from a mowing ma¬ 
chine. To be sure, this locomotive seemed to be of 
no use except to frighten the cows. When Henry 
Ford ran it up and down the fields the cows ran 
from it in all directions. He thought it great fun 
to see them run, but he was not so well pleased when 
the people of the town made sport of him and his 
horseless wagon, as it was called. 

Henry Ford was the kind of man who works 
harder when difficulties appear. He wanted to 
make a better wagon run by a motor, and he worked 
very hard to bring this about. In the workshop 
fitted up in the barn behind his home he spent many 
hours working and planning. He had to use junk 
for his wagons because he had no money with which 
to buy better material, but he soon had a wagon 
driven by gas that would go along the road. He 
called it “ Ford’s buggy driven by gas.” He liked 
it fairly well, but the people made fun of it. 

Henry Ford let the people laugh as much as they 
wished, but he did not give up making cars. He 
kept on making better ones until at last he sue- 


74 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

ceeded in making a car that would run on level 
ground, would run up and down hill, and go back¬ 
ward and forward. He was well pleased then, and 
his new car was watched eagerly by the people of 
his city. 

No one made sport of this new car. Every one 
thought it very wonderful indeed, which it truly 
was. 

“ See! The buggy moves itself!” the children 
cried when they saw one come up the street. 

“ Who would have thought that a buggy could 
be made to move along without horses? ” the men 
shouted. People everywhere were filled with in¬ 
terest. 

Those were happy days for Henry Ford. He 
kept on making cars, and while he made them he 
tried to learn new ways to make them better and 
cheaper. 

At last he formed the Ford Motor Company, 
which turns out more than fifteen hundred new cars 
every day, and sells each one for less money than 
any car of its kind in the whole world. 


A CAR THAT MOVES OF ITSELF 75 

Henry Ford did not make the first automobile in 
the world. While he was trying to make a motor 
car that could be run by gasolene, other men were 
working along the same line. Men like Mr. 
Haynes, Mr. Olds, and Mr. Duryea were making 
automobiles that would run by gasolene engines, 
but Mr. Ford’s new car soon proved itself to be the 
best one of its kind at that time. In a very short 
while it was being used in the greatest numbers. 

To-day there are hundreds of cars of different 
kinds and makes. There is the Buick, the Cadillac, 
the Dodge, the Chevrolet, the Peerless, the Pierce 
Arrow. Most boys and girls can name a dozen 
different kinds of cars without much trouble. The 
automobiles that are made to-day are all better 
looking than Henry Ford’s first cars. The first 
ones were made short and high. To-day they are 
much longer and lower and more graceful looking. 
They are made to give greater comfort, and can run 
faster and better. Henry Ford’s first automobile 
went very slowly. Now an automobile can go very, 
very fast if the driver wishes. A racing car can go 


76 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

more than one hundred and twenty miles an hour, 
which is even faster than an express railroad train! 
Think of two places a mile apart. Then imagine 
riding from one place to the other and back again 
in a minute’s time. Henry Ford’s first car would 
surely take the booby prize in such a race now, 
although when it was first made it was the fastest 
car of all. This shows how much better the auto¬ 
mobiles are being made as time goes on. 

To one who is not in the car, the automobile 
seems to be moving of itself, but most people 
know that this is not true at all. Inside the hood 
which reaches out to the front of the car is a 
powerful engine that is run by the explosion of gas¬ 
olene. 

Just how the automobile is run by the explosion 
of gasolene is easily understood. Most boys have 
shot off a gun, and they know what happens when 
the trigger is made to strike the cartridge. The 
powder in the cartridge explodes and the bullet is 
forced out through the barrel of the gun because 
this is the only way in which it can escape. 


A CAR THAT MOVES OF ITSELF 77 

In the automobile the gasolene flows from the 
tank through the carburetor into some hot pipes, 
where a part of it turns into vapor. From the hot 
pipes the vapor goes into the cylinders where a 
little spark of electricity causes it to explode. The 
pistons which are in the cylinders are forced down 
when the explosion takes place, just as the bullet in 
a gun is forced to move when the powder explodes. 
The pistons are fastened to the crank-shafts that 
run back to the axles of the rear wheels of the auto¬ 
mobile. When the pistons go down, the crank¬ 
shafts are made to turn the back wheels and the 
car moves along. 

The automobile will run along alone after it has 
been started, but there must be some one to steer it 
and to make it stop. The man who steers the car sits 
upon the front seat with his hands upon the big 
steering wheel. He can make the car go slowly or 
fast, as he wishes, and he can stop whenever he 
desires. Now and then he must stop to buy gaso¬ 
lene, which the engine uses for fuel. There is 
enough gasolene used by automobiles every year to 


78 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

make a belt of five-gallon cans reaching around the 
equator not only once but twice! This shows how 
much the automobile has come to be used, and it is 
no wonder! 

When the grocer or other merchant wants to de¬ 
liver his goods quickly, his automobile helps him to 
make the deliveries with little trouble. 

When the doctor makes his calls he can help 
many more patients in a day by using his automo¬ 
bile. 

And when the pleasant summer days come, the 
boys and girls whose parents or friends own an 
automobile can enjoy many a beautiful day in the 
country. 

Most boys and girls have taken trips of this kind. 
Children who live about the state of New York like 
to drive out to West Point to see the boys who are 
learning to become soldiers. The boys march 
around in drills of many kinds, or ride about on the 
backs of horses. 

Along the Hudson River there are many pretty 
spots that make good picnic places, and the Catskill 


A CAR THAT MOVES OF ITSELF 79 
and Adirondack Mountains are always favorite 
places for automobile travellers. 

Children who live near the state of New Jersey 
are often taken to Atlantic City in automobiles. 
There one can stop to bathe in the ocean or play in 
the sand. There are many other amusements in 
Atlantic City too. There are ponies to ride, roller 
coasters, shoot-the-chutes, and big merry-go-rounds. 
The merry-go-rounds have prancing horses, wild¬ 
looking zebras, long-necked giraffes, and other 
make-believe animals for children to ride, while gay 
music makes all the riders feel just as gay. 

There is a board walk which follows the ocean for 
a number of miles, and along it are shopkeepers who 
sell toys of all kinds as well as ice-cream, candy, 
and lemonade. 

If one cares to hear music, there are bands and 
orchestras which play upon the piers or in the hotels, 
and there are moving pictures for those who might 
care to see a favorite actor. 

Children who live around Chicago enjoy driving 
to the sand dunes upon the southern shores of Lake 


80 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
Michigan. With so much sand children can build 
great tall towers, hills, or mountains. The deep 
caves some children build make one think of what 
happened to Aladdin who found a wonderful lamp 
down in a deep, roomy cave. 

Out in California there are the giant trees for 
children to see. Automobiles can drive right 
through the trunks of some of these. 

At Yosemite Park there are many kinds of 
flowers and strangely beautiful mountains. Chil¬ 
dren who have never before seen much of California 
like to drive by the orange groves and along roads 
that are shaded by the spreading palms which are 
only found in warm sunny climates. 

Washington, D. C., has much of interest for boys 
and girls. Many well-known persons live in Wash¬ 
ington. It is here that the President lives in the 
White House. The Capitol building, where the 
laws of the country are made, is often visited by 
automobile travellers too. 

It may be that a few of the children who read this 
book have driven across the whole country in an 


A CAR THAT MOVES OF ITSELF 81 
automobile. The children who have taken a trip of 
this kind can tell many things about their country 
that children who study geography only out of 
books can never know. When you read about a 
mountain or see a picture of one, you know a little 
about how it looks. When you slowly climb a 
mountain in an automobile, and perhaps eat your 
lunch among the shrubs and plants that grow upon 
its slope, you have seen a real picture of a moun¬ 
tain and know more about it. 

Some automobile tourists travel in their cars as 
far as one of the ports of the Great Lakes, like 
Buffalo. Then they drive their automobile on to 
one of the lake steamers, which carries them far 
away over the waters. The automobile has its turn 
to ride then, and the children who have been riding 
in it have a different kind of ride. When they 
reach the end of the lake trip, the automobile is 
driven from the steamer and the travellers drive 
along on land again. 

Almost every child can tell more ways in which 
the automobile has proven of use. The farmer 


82 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
sometimes uses the tractor, which is a sort of auto¬ 
mobile that can plow the ground very quickly and 
very well. A man who has hundreds of acres to 
plow in the springtime is glad to have a tractor to 
help him do the work. 

Many children have never seen a tractor at work 
plowing up a field, but almost every child knows 
what use can be made of an automobile on moving 
day. When that time comes, the mover brings one 
of his great moving vans and almost all of the furni¬ 
ture can be hauled away at one time. People 
everywhere save a great deal of time on moving 
day because of what the automobile can do for 
them. 

Even in war time the automobile was sent on 
errands here, there, and everywhere. The armor 
cars, ambulances, transport trucks—you have 
heard all about these. 

Do you wonder that automobiles are being 
bought in greater numbers each year? When the 
year 1923 closed there were almost eleven million 
(11,000,000) passenger cars in use in the United 


A CAR THAT MOVES OF ITSELF 83 
States, and more than one million (1,000,000) 
motor trucks and business cars! 

The car that seems to move of itself has proven 
of use in more ways than one can tell, and this is 
why so many people wish to own one. In war 
time, in days of peace, in the city, in the country— 
is it not true that the automobile can be of use any¬ 
where? 


PICTURES THAT SEEM TO BE ALIVE 


W ARREN and Jack sat in the dark mov¬ 
ing-picture theatre one day. Warren 
was a very small boy, and it was his first visit to the 
theatre. Jack was older, and knew all about the 
pictures. Warren sat with his mouth open. He 
had never seen such strange sights as were shown 
upon the screen that day. 

Suddenly a big black bear came out in the pic¬ 
ture. He showed his teeth and started to run. It 
looked as if he were running toward the children 
in the theatre. 

Warren climbed down from his seat and hid be¬ 
hind the back of the one in front of him. “ The 
bear is coming! ” he cried. 

Jack laughed. “ Do not be afraid. It is not a 
real bear,” he said. 

Warren did not seem to hear. He sat upon the 
84 


Cameramen Taking a Picture from an Elevation in Order to Get an Unusual Effeci 


















































PICTURES THAT SEEM ALIVE 85 
floor and pulled at Jack’s legs. “ Take me home! ” 
he begged. 

The bear turned around and started to run away. 
“ Look! Look! ” Jack cried as he pulled Warren 
up on to his feet. “ The bear is running away! ” 

Warren looked timidly. Sure enough! The 
bear was running away as fast as he could go. 

Warren climbed back on to the seat, and watched 
the pictures very closely for awhile. He kept 
thinking that the bear would come back. At last 
he forgot all about the bad-looking bear when the 
funny man appeared. All the children laughed 
and shouted when the funny man fell into a barrel 
of water. 

A few years ago children could not see pictures 
that look so real they seem to be alive. The only 
bears that could frighten the smallest children were 
at the zoo. Some children never saw any bears at 
all except in picture books. The only funny stories 
children knew were the ones they read or a few that 
were told to them. 

To-day children may see a funny picture almost 


86 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

any time they wish, and pictures of animals are 
shown time and time again. Some animals are 
only known to children because of the moving pic¬ 
ture. 

The kaola had his picture taken one day. He 
looks like a teddy bear, and is very cunning in his 
ways. When his master takes him in his arms the 
kaola cuddles up close and seems to enjoy being 
petted. When dinner time comes, he will eat noth¬ 
ing but eucalyptus leaves. The man who buys his 
food had to send to California for a load of eucalyp¬ 
tus leaves for little kaola as soon as he arrived from 
Australia. 

Very few children have seen a lizard eat his 
dinner, but many children have seen the moving pic¬ 
tures that show this strange creature at meal time. 
He eats whole eggs without even stopping to chew 
them. Shell and all, the lizard devours the eggs 
and seems to think them very delicious. 

Old Mr. Turtle had his picture taken one day too. 
He had had three hundred birthdays, so one would 
expect him to be rather slow, but, strange to say, 


PICTURES THAT SEEM ALIVE 87 
he was always like this. Even in his younger 
days he moved along as if he had plenty of time for 
what he had to do. If a hare should have a race 
with him, the hare could take a very, very long nap 
and still have a chance to win the race. 

Then there are the penguins who live in the far 
north country, the otters that are like seals, and 
many other animals. 

In some of the comedy pictures animals are the 
only actors. There is a town policeman. A mon¬ 
key dressed like a policeman may take this part. 
A railroad train runs through the animal town. 
There is a dog for a brakeman on the train, and a 
conductor who must bark when he asks for the 
passengers’ fares, because he too is none other than 
Mr. Dog Conductor. Cats dressed like children 
play in the streets, and ducks and geese dressed like 
women of the town go marketing with their baskets 
upon their arms. 

Insects and birds often do their work, or play 
upon the screen for children to see. The cater¬ 
pillar spins its cocoon cradle and goes to sleep. 


88 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

When it has slept a long time it comes out of the 
cocoon, but it is no longer a caterpillar. It has 
changed into a butterfly with gay-colored wings of 
great beauty. It is as if it had been sleeping in a 
fairy cradle. Some children have never seen a real 
butterfly come out of a cocoon, but many children 
have seen screen pictures of caterpillars. 

When bees buzz around in the fields most chil¬ 
dren run away if they come near. Few children 
would care to look about the inside of a beehive 
while the bees were there, but pictures of bees and 
their homes are safe to see. The bee nurses, who 
take care of the baby bees, have little brushes upon 
their legs. The bees who collect the pollen from 
the flowers have pockets in which to carry it. The 
nectar which they get from the flowers is carried in 
pockets too. In the moving pictures a bee can be 
made larger than he really is, so that one gets a very 
good idea of how he looks without getting into any 
danger. 

Baby birds are hard to find. Parent birds build 
their nests in places well hidden by leaves of trees 


PICTURES THAT SEEM ALIVE 89 
or shrubbery. The oriole’s nest hangs from a 
branch like a cradle, and is built so near the end of 
the branch that a boy or girl could never reach it. 
In the moving picture one can see the oriole babies 
and their parents as well. One never cares to dis^ 
turb Mr. or Mrs. Oriole when they have seen a pic¬ 
ture of their cunning little ones and know how hard 
the parents work to. get enough food to satisfy 
them. 

The strange peoples of the earth could never be¬ 
come known to children through reading alone. 
One can get a much better idea of people who may 
be seen moving about at work or play. Most chil¬ 
dren like the pictures of the Eskimo babies eating 
their blubber or drinking oil. The Eskimos’ games 
in the snow and their swift rides in dog sledges are 
a pleasure to see. 

Then there are the countries of Europe and Asia, 
and the far-away land of Africa! When you have 
seen the Chinese children sitting upon the floor in 
their strange schools you are glad that your schools 
are made with comfortable seats and desks. When 


90 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

you see what happens when earthquakes bring dis¬ 
aster to countries like Japan, you are glad if your 
home is in a country that is seldom visited by these 
great disturbances. When the pictures show some 
of the wild and fierce animals of Africa howling 
about near the rude huts of the African children, 
you are glad if dangerous animals are not often 
found near your home. 

At other times the pictures of foreign countries 
show scenes that make one long to be able to visit 
the place or even live there. 

There are the scenes which show children playing 
about in gardens filled with blossoms of wonderful 
beauty in the Japanese country. Italian children 
are shown riding in gayly-decorated boats upon the 
waters of Venice or other cities of Italy. Dutch 
children may be seen skating along some of the 
frozen streams of their country. These waterways 
are many miles in length, and the Dutch children 
can skate for a long time without having to turn 
around. 

When the great World War was being fought, 


PICTURES THAT SEEM ALIVE 91 
there were pictures of the trenches filled with men 
getting ready to engage in battle. Soldiers 
marched here and there, and aeroplanes did their 
part in watching the movements of the enemy or 
hurling bombs when it seemed best to do so. Oh 
how carefully fathers and mothers looked at the 
pictures that showed what was going on at the 
front in those days! 

When peace was made, the moving picture 
helped to show the people, who could not see the 
real parades, what was being done to celebrate the 
making of peace. 

Moving pictures often have news stories to tell. 
When the Russians were starving for lack of food, 
people in other parts of the world were more will¬ 
ing to help when they had seen pictures that told 
how much suffering there was in the country of 
Russia. And when the President of the United 
States takes a trip or makes an important speech, 
there is almost sure to be a camera man taking mov¬ 
ing pictures of his actions. 

Perhaps, most of all, boys and girls like to see 


92 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
other children play stories for them. Almost every 
child has laughed at some actor like Jackie Coogan 
or Baby Peggy. They may have cried a little 
when the pictures showed that these actors were in 
trouble. Jackie Coogan has thousands of letters 
from boys and girls all over the country, and Baby 
Peggy could never read all of the letters that have 
been sent to her. Children feel that they really 
know the boys and girls who act for them, because 
the pictures make them seem so real. 

Some children like the grown-up actors almost 
as well as the younger ones. They like to watch 
Charley Chaplin, who is the funniest man some of 
them have ever seen. An old derby hat, grand¬ 
father’s cane, a pair of baggy pants, and a big old 
pair of shoes has made many a boy into a make-be¬ 
lieve Charley Chaplin at home when the real show 
was over. Some of these make-believe Charley 
Chaplins can play tricks that are almost as funny 
as the ones they have seen in the pictures. 

Sometimes giant men become actors in the 
movies. One giant man is over eight feet tall. He 


PICTURES THAT SEEM ALIVE 93 
makes the children laugh when they see him riding 
in his Ford automobile. He has had to have a hole 
made through the top of it. He looks very funny 
riding along with his head and shoulders extending 
through the top of the car. One dwarf man of the 
movies is only three feet tall. This is as tall as 
your school yardstick would be if it were placed on 
end. When the giant man is in a picture with the 
dwarf man the two can be very funny. 

Moving pictures often tell a story that has been 
printed in a book before. “ The Thief of Bag¬ 
dad!” Did you ever read this Arabian Nights 
story? If you have never read it, you must get 
the Arabian Nights tales from the library, or read 
the story from your own book, if you own a copy. 
Then when you have a chance to see the moving 
picture of the story, try to do so if you can. You 
will see a magic carpet that sails through the air 
far above the heads of the people, faster than the 
fastest aeroplane in the world. You will see a city 
that hangs from the clouds, a winged horse, and 
many other wonders. If you like adventure, you 


94 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

will watch the hero carefully because he has much 
to do before he gets possession of the hidden treas¬ 
ure which makes him rich enough to woo the prin¬ 
cess. 

Mr. Douglas Fairbanks is the hero of the picture. 
He took charge of the making of it too. He sent 
to all parts of the world for men to help him make 
the story seem real. There were dancers from 
Java, China, and Japan, as well as other parts of 
the East, slaves from Africa, magicians from Per¬ 
sia, and artists from many other countries. It took 
a year and two months to make the picture, but it 
is worth the time and work that were put into it. 

When you have seen this picture you will never 
forget the story of “ The Thief of Bagdad.” No 
doubt you could name many other stories that you 
will always remember because you have seen them 
upon the screen in the moving-picture theatre. 
“Little Lord Fauntleroy,” “ Pollyanna,” “Re¬ 
becca of Sunnybrook Farm,”—perhaps you have 
seen many or all of these. 

Moving pictures are a pleasure to see, and 


PICTURES THAT SEEM ALIVE 95 
they may teach us a great deal. Every one seems 
to know that. But how are they made? Some 
people have not thought much about this. The 
first device which could be used to make a picture 
that moved at all was nothing but a sort of toy and 
was called a zoctrope. It was a rolling cylinder 
having many slits in the outside. By looking into 
the cylinder through one of these slits one could see 
a picture. The pictures were placed within the 
cylinder in such order that the objects seemed to 
be moving when the cylinder was rolled fast enough. 

Other devices like the zoctrope were made, but 
none were like the modern moving-picture machine. 

It was not until a little more than thirty years 
ago that the first moving-picture machine was 
shown to the people. This first machine was called 
the kinetoscope, and was made by Mr. Edison. It 
was shown at the World’s Fair in Chicago in the 
year 1893. The machine could not do the splendid 
work that the cinematograph of to-day can do, but 
it aroused a great deal of interest. After it had been 
shown, Mr. Edison and other men kept on trying 


96 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

to make a better one, until we have now the machine 

that does the good work we see everywhere. 

All over the world men travel to take pictures so 
that we may know how the most distant countries 
and peoples look. Sometimes the picture must be 
taken from a place high up on a mountain. Other 
pictures have been taken away down at the bottom 
of the ocean. Indoors, outdoors, from aeroplanes, 
ships, or tall buildings,—everywhere men go to get 
their pictures. Many are at work to make the pic¬ 
tures of interest too. The author writes the story, 
the actors make believe they are the people who 
are a part of the story, the director tells the actors 
what to do, the camera man takes the picture. Be¬ 
sides this, there are the electricians, the men to take 
care of the lighting of the stage, the men who ar¬ 
range the scenery, and others. 

With so many helpers at work, it is no wonder 
that the moving pictures can be made to seem alive 
and real to us. 


Westinghouse Station KDKA, East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 
“The Pioneer Broadcasting Station of the World” 

























































































A SERVANT THAT WORKS WITHOUT 
PAY 



EARLY every boy knows about radio. 


Some boys know as much as their fathers 


and mothers. They know how to fasten one end of 
a wire to a tree in the back yard or to the roof of 
the house. The other end is fastened to a box in¬ 
side the house. When all the parts have been put 
into place, music or stories can be heard. Some of 
the boys have to put a sort of telephone receiver to 
each ear in order to hear the music or story. To 
others it comes from a big horn and can be heard 
all over the room. 

Most children know that it is radio waves which 
carry the music and stories through the air. These 
waves travel in all directions, through trees, ani¬ 
mals, and even through the walls of houses. They 
travel swiftly too,—around the world more than 
seven times in one second they can travel. 

The boy who makes a radio set knows how to 


97 


98 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
catch the waves and bring them into the house so 
that he can hear what they may have to say. Radio 
is like a willing servant. All that one needs is a 
set of coils and wires that have been put into their 
right places. Then radio will come into the house 
and bring whatever music or stories some distant 
person wishes it to bring. 

Most servants work for but one family at a time. 
It is not so with radio. Thousands of people are 
served by this willing worker at the very same mo¬ 
ment. 

You have seen what happens when a stone is 
dropped into a quiet pool of water. Little ripples 
or waves spread out in all directions. The waves 
in the air, called radio, are set into motion in much 
the same way, but it is electricity that makes the 
splash in the air just as a stone makes the splash 
in the water. 

All about us everywhere the sounds of voices are 
being carried through the air by radio waves, but 
we can hear them only when the electricity in our 
radio sets has helped to make the sounds stronger. 


A SERVANT WITHOUT PAY 99 

And what pleasant times children have when they 
listen to what radio brings them! 

Most children have read some of the animal 
stories that Mr. Thornton Burgess has written. 
With the help of radio Mr. Burgess sometimes tells 
stories about the animals to thousands of children 
in the country at one time. Children are always 
glad to know what happened to Peter Rabbit, to 
Chatterer the Squirrel, or to Paddy the Beaver. 

With the help of radio, the man who wrote the 
story about Dr. Doolittle has told thousands of chil¬ 
dren about the funny things that happened to the 
strange doctor and his friends. 

Children who live around the city of New York 
can very easily hear the Man in the Moon tell his 
bedtime stories. Uncle Wiggly stories are often 
carried by radio from Philadelphia to homes all 
over the country. 

It is not only children who enjoy what radio 
brings. Grandmothers, mothers, fathers, aunts, 
and uncles find that radio has something for them. 
Perhaps grandpa likes the funny stories the best, 


100 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
while grandmother may like the old, old tunes. 
The older girls and boys sometimes like to dance to 
the music that some good orchestra plays for them. 
Father is always glad when radio brings him the 
latest news of the day or the reports from the mar¬ 
kets, while mother may like a talk on how to make 
a new kind of dressing for the chicken she is to 
roast for the Sunday dinner, and she always likes 
to hear the music. When the President of the 
United States makes a speech, every one wants to 
listen! 

Out upon the sea radio is as faithful a worker 
as upon the land. A few years ago a great boat 
called the Titanic struck a large iceberg in the deep 
waters of the Atlantic Ocean. In a short time the 
boat had sunk, and the people who were alive at 
all were swimming about in the icy waters or were 
huddled together in open rowboats without shelter. 
Before the Titanic went down, the S. O. S. message 
had been sent out by radio, and within a short time 
a big friendly steamer had made her way to the 
scene of the disaster. Hundreds of lives were 


A SERVANT WITHOUT PAY 101 
saved that day, and people praised radio for the 
wonderful work that it did. 

One time a ship carrying the well-known Mr. 
William Jennings Bryan was grounded upon the 
beach of one of the Bahama Islands. This ship 
was named Prinz Joachim. The radio operator 
of the ship sent out a call for help which was first 
heard by the owners of the vessel, who had their 
office in a skyscraper in the city of New York. 
They at once sent messages to all the land stations 
along the Atlantic coast. From these stations mes¬ 
sages were sent out upon the waters for near-by 
steamers. Within a short time a vessel happened 
to be passing near the Bahama Islands and received 
the message telling of the trouble that had befallen 
the Prinz Joachim. This ship hurried to the 
scene as fast as it could. 

In the meantime the people on the grounded ves¬ 
sel would have been very anxious and worried had 
it not been for their hope in radio. They all 
thought that it would bring them aid, which is 
just what it did. A few hours after the first mes- 


102 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
sage had been sent, the passengers were taken from 
the Prinz Joachim by a rescue vessel and were on 
their way again. 

One could easily fill a book with true stories of 
how radio has saved lives at sea. Cases have been 
known where men have been taken sick on board 
ship with no doctor present to give advice. Then 
radio has sent out the message HDKA, which 
means “ Help Wanted For Just One Person.” 
When this message is heard every one tries to get 
help to the person in trouble as soon as possible. 
The life of a captain of a steamer off Florida Keys 
was saved because of the quick help brought by 
radio. The captain became very ill with poisoning. 
With the help of radio a doctor on shore told the 
captain’s friends what to give him to keep him alive 
until the vessel could reach the nearest port. At 
the port an ambulance was sent to the boat to take 
the captain to a hospital. 

When the great cities of Tokio and Yokohama 
in Japan were destroyed by earthquake, it was the 
messages carried by radio that let the world know 


A SERVANT WITHOUT PAY 103 
of the trouble so that food and clothing could be 
sent at once. 

On a cold winter’s night in the year 1924, the 
navy balloon called the Shenandoah was moored to 
a mast at Lakehurst, New Jersey. A gale came 
up from the southeast. Rain and sleet were blown 
by a strong wind that made the wires which held the 
balloon to the mast strain and pull back and forth. 

Suddenly the wind drove against the Shenandoah 
with such great force that it tore the balloon from 
its mooring and sent it adrift into the stormy 
heavens. 

Some of the ship’s crew quickly let fall overboard 
four thousand pounds of water, a great heavy box 
of food, and some gasolene tanks. This was to 
lighten the weight of the ship and keep it from 
plunging to the ground. While all this was being 
done, a part of the crew set the engines to working. 
This and many other things had to be done quickly 
in order to keep the Shenandoah from being de¬ 
stroyed within a very short time. No doubt you 
may have read about it. People everywhere 


104 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

praised the captain and his men for their good 

work. 

It is true that the crew of the Shenandoah worked 
wisely and well, but radio had a share in helping to 
send the great balloon back to its proper landing 
place in safety. 

When the captain and his men were lost in the 
darkness, telegraph messages were sent out by 
them, and radio carried back to these men mes¬ 
sages of comfort and cheer from the stations along 
the way. With the help of radio men told the cap¬ 
tain just where his ship was, so that he might steer 
as carefully as the storm would allow. 

On that stormy winter night radio told thousands 
of people all over the country just where the great 
balloon Shenandoah was being seen from time to 
time. When the word was sent through the air 
that the ship was headed toward its own landing 
place in New Jersey people praised radio. “ How 
useful it is,” every one thought. “ Who can tell 
what wonderful things it may be able to do in the 
future? ” many said. 


A SERVANT WITHOUT PAY 105 
Explorers and men who travel in the far northern 
countries are full of praise for radio too. There 
was a time when these men were lost to the world 
when they journeyed into these distant regions. 
This is not true any more. Mr. Macmillan, the 
great explorer, could hear the news of the day and 
listen to songs or stories by radio during the long 
evenings when he was icebound in the North. He 
forgot that he was miles away from his home when 
radio helped him to hear what was going on in one 
of the city theatres or churches. 

Captain Amundsen, the discoverer of tlje South 
Pole, will carry a radio set with him on all of his 
future trips to the far-away lands in that region. 

Many a farmer spends an evening listening to a 
program of music from a distant city, or he may 
learn how much he should get for his corn or hogs. 
Sometimes he lets radio tell him what weather to 
expect for the next day, as there are many kinds of 
work about a farm that are done best in fair 
weather. Produce of many kinds is best when 
shipped on pleasant days. Haying in rainy 


106 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
weather would be unpleasant as well as unwise. 
The orchard heaters must be used on nights when 
a frost is due. Spraying of trees and bushes is best 
done when there is no rain to wash away the poison. 

Radio has not always been the well-known won¬ 
der worker that it is to-day, and there are some 
tribes in South America and Africa who are so un¬ 
civilized that they know nothing about it even now. 
When a message must be sent to a distant people 
they cannot even write a letter or telephone. They 
set a large hollow log on end in the water. Upon 
this log they pound with a heavy club. The pound¬ 
ing makes vibrations, which in turn make ripples 
of waves in the water. These ripples are carried 
up and down for a distance of several miles. The 
one who receives the message holds his ear to one 
end of another log set up on end in the water. 

Long ago the Indians used smoke when they 
wished to send a message from one place to another. 
They placed a blanket over a smoldering fire, and 
an Indian would raise it from time to time to let 
out some of the smoke. These smoke signals 


A SERVANT WITHOUT PAY 107 
carried messages to other Indians who might be 
several miles away. 

The Indians had a way of beating upon the 
ground in a certain manner too. The beatings 
would make vibrations that could be heard by 
trained ears for long distances. The Indian who 
wished to receive a message of this kind would lie 
perfectly quiet with one ear to the ground. Since 
each tribe had its own sign language its secrets 
could not be understood by the enemy in times of 
war. 

The people who lived in Greece and Rome filled 
pots with straw and oil. They arranged these in a 
certain order upon high places. Then they lighted 
them. 

A number of years ago the country of France 
was engaged in a war known as the French Revolu¬ 
tion. Semaphores were used for signalling at this 
time, and for a number of years afterward. En¬ 
gineers are even now given signals by this means in 
all parts of our own country. When the French 
used the semaphores for signalling, they were able 


108 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
to send messages for long distances because of their 
telescopes with which they were better able to see 
distant signals. 

Then after a few years Mr. Samuel Morse 
helped to bring the electric telegraph into use. In 
1844 the first message was sent from Baltimore to 
Washington. “ What Hath God Wrought! ” was 
sent by means of dots and dashes, which stood for 
letters. 

Later Mr. Morse got his friend, Mr. Field, in¬ 
terested in making a cable so that messages might 
be sent across the ocean from one country to an¬ 
other. This was a hard piece of work. Mr. Field 
had to try many times before he succeeded in con¬ 
necting the countries of Europe and America in 
this way. The first cable which he tried to lay did 
not hold well at all. After a few miles had been 
laid, the cable parted and the men had to sail back 
to port and plan the work over again. A second 
trial was made, and the cable parted again. It is 
needless to say that the loss amounted to more than 
a million dollars and many people were discour- 


A SERVANT WITHOUT PAY 109 
aged. Mr. Field went on with the work and did not 
stop until twenty-five hundred miles of cable lay 
upon the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. For a 
number of years cables have extended from our 
shores to all parts of the world, and our people have 
been able to send messages to the people of other 
countries separated by thousands of miles of water. 

After the cable was put into use, people wanted 
to speak to one another at a distance, just as they 
would speak if they were in the same room. When 
Mr. Bell had invented the telephone, this, too, was 
made possible. 

Then came the idea of sending a message to an¬ 
other without the use of wires, and Mr. Marconi 
brought into use what is known as wireless teleg¬ 
raphy. In this system an instrument records dots 
and dashes which stand for letters. 

This was a wonderful piece of work, but men 
did not stop even there. They wanted to be able to 
speak to another at a distance without the use of 
wires! 

Many men worked upon this. One man found 


110 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
that radio waves are travelling through the air all 
about us. Another man learned how to catch some 
of these waves and send them forth again. Mr. 
Hertz was his name. Still other men worked out 
ways in which to make the waves carry the sound 
of music or the words of a speaker. Then a way 
had to be made to make these sounds louder so that 
they could be plainly heard. 

All this did not come quickly. It was not until 
the year 1915 that the first words were carried from 
Washington to Paris without the use of wires, and 
it was not until six years later that people every¬ 
where began to use radio. It was at this time, in 
the year 1921, that programs were first sent out into 
the air—from the city of Pittsburgh. There was 
good music, and there were talks that people liked. 
People began to be greatly interested, and radio 
sets were bought in large numbers. To-day thou¬ 
sands of these receivers are ready to catch the pleas¬ 
ant sounds that come through the air every day 
from all over the country. 

Although we are all enjoying much that is being 


A SERVANT WITHOUT PAY 111 
brought to us through the use of radio, our grand¬ 
children will no doubt put this great invention to 
even greater use than we of to-day. It may be 
that at some distant time certain ships will be run 
by men who are miles away. This was tried with 
one of the nav}^ boats some years ago and found to 
work very well. 

In future wars it may be that torpedoes will be 
made to travel through space without stopping un¬ 
til they have hit their mark when radio is made to 
direct their path. 

A photograph of President Harding was sent 
across the Atlantic Ocean a few years ago. The 
work of sending photographs will be perfected as 
time goes on. 

Almost every servant can improve upon his work, 
and this is true of radio. Perhaps in a short time 
we shall have trained it to do its work so well 
that even the far-away peoples of Japan and China 
will be able to talk and sing to us! 


A MACHINE THAT TALKS AND SINGS 
LMOST every child who reads this book has 



/ \ had his picture taken at some time. Many 
children have cameras or kodaks and take pictures 
of their own. Most children like to take pictures 
of their friends or even of their animal pets. It is 
great fun to do this. A rabbit takes a good pic¬ 
ture, and a dog can be made to look as if he were 
alive. 

There is one kind of picture that children never 
take. This is the picture of their friends’ or of their 
pets’ voices. It may be that some children have 
thought this could not be done. 

Many years ago a clever man named Mr. Scott 
worked out a plan for taking this strange kind of 
picture. To begin with, Mr. Scott knew a great 
deal about what happens when any one speaks. 
He knew that every one has in his throat a mem- 


112 


A MACHINE TALKS AND SINGS 113 
brane that quivers whenever he talks. These 
quivers set the air in motion. It is these waves of 
sound which travel through the. air and strike the 
drum of the ear. This is the way in which we hear. 

Other men had known this, but no one had ever 
worked out a way to take a picture of the sounds 
until Mr. Scott made his phonautograph. The 
phonautograph was a curious machine made upon 
a frame shaped like a barrel. Over the end of the 
barrel a thin membrane was stretched tightly, and 
in the center of this membrane a stiff hog’s bristle 
was fastened. When some one spoke with his lips 
close to the outer end of the barrel, the membrane 
across the other end would quiver. This in turn 
moved the stiff hog’s bristle. The bristle would 
move back and forth, leaving a wavy line upon a 
cylinder that had been covered with lamp black. 
The black wavy line was a picture of the voice that 
had been spoken into the barrel. 

If Mr. Scott had been able to go on with his in¬ 
vention, the phonautograph might have taken the 
place of the phonograph, and Mr. Scott might have 


114 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

been a more famous man than he turned out to 

be. 

But Mr. Scott could not think of a way in which 
to make the picture of a voice talk or sing. It took 
another clever man to work this out. Mr. Edison 
was the one to do this work twenty years after Mr. 
Scott had taken the first pictures of a man’s voice. 

Mr. Edison, as you know, was the kind of man 
who worked upon a problem all day and all night 
if he thought that this would help to solve it. He 
was used to hard problems because he had been a 
poor boy who had to work very hard. His father 
was a laboring man, and Thomas Edison had to 
earn money when other boys of his age were still in 
school. 

Most boys are in the sixth or seventh grade at 
the age of twelve years. When Thomas Edison 
was twelve years of age he had had what little 
schooling he was to receive, for he had attended 
school but two months in his whole life. His mother 
taught him at home, and at the age of- twelve years 
he had learned all that she was able to teach him. 


A MACHINE TALKS AND SINGS 115 
He became a newsboy on the Grand Trunk Rail¬ 
road. After he had been selling papers for a little 
while he decided that he would publish a paper of 
his own and sell it also. Thomas had always been 
very eager to learn new things. He liked to know 
how different kinds of work were done. He was 
watching the printer of a paper one day. The 
printer admired the young boy for his interest in 
the work and gave him some old printing presses. 
These Thomas put into use as soon as he could. 
It was these old presses that he used in publishing 
his own little paper, and he was very happy when 
he found that sometimes he was able to make 
as much as forty-five dollars a month from the sale 
of it. 

For a poor boy this was a great deal of money, 
but Thomas was not able to earn it for a long time. 
He had been in the habit of using a corner of the 
baggage car to work out problems in chemistry 
when he was not busy with his papers. He had 
acids and other chemicals which he mixed and 
treated in different ways. 


116 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

He was working with some phosphorus one day 
when he upset the container and the phosphorus 
took fire. 

The conductor put out the fire, but he was very 
angry. He threw out what was left of Thomas 
Edison’s chemical supplies. He threw out of the 
car what was left of Thomas’s printing presses. 
Last of all he threw out poor Thomas himself. 

The boy then had the problem of finding new 
work, but he soon solved this. While he was still 
a newsboy he had saved the life of a little child by 
snatching him from the path of a moving train. 
The father had been very grateful to Thomas Edi¬ 
son and had taught him telegraphy as a reward for 
his brave act. When Thomas lost his chance to sell 
papers on the trains of the Grand Trunk Railroad 
he decided to earn his living by becoming a teleg¬ 
rapher, and this is what he did. He became an 
expert telegrapher, but he left this work in time 
because he liked inventing better than anything in 
the whole world. 

When Thomas Edison was twenty-one years of 


A MACHINE TALKS AND SINGS 117 
age he invented an electrie machine that could be 
used to count votes. At the same time he also in¬ 
vented another electric machine called the stock 
ticker. With this machine prices of stocks could be 
printed upon paper tape. For this invention Mr. 
Edison received forty thousand dollars ($40,000). 
This was such a large sum that he could scarcely 
believe that his work was worth so much. 

Some boys would have stopped working if they 
had earned such a large amount of money. Mr. 
Edison was glad to have the money because it 
helped to make it possible for him to give up his 
whole time to the work of inventing. Not long 
after he had received this first large check he built 
a laboratory near Newark, New Jersey. In this 
shop he spent his time working out new inventions. 
Later he built two four-story buildings at Orange, 
New Jersey, where many of his famous inventions 
were first tried out. 

One time he spent sixty hours at work upon a 
problem. During this time he ate nothing but 
crackers and cheese while at his work bench. 


118 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

At another time he remained in the laboratory 
for five days and five nights. During this time he 
would sleep only when one of his hewers took his 
place, and then he did not sleep long. Mr. Edison’s 
eyes grew weak from looking at the brilliant glow 
of the electric light which he was studying. Dur¬ 
ing the last two days and nights he ate nothing, but 
at the end of the five days he had almost solved the 
problem that he was trying to work out about light¬ 
ing with electricity. Later he was able to get just 
the kind of light he wanted. 

Mr. Edison liked the idea of taking pictures of 
sounds with the phonautograph which Mr. Scott 
had learned to make. He was glad when he him¬ 
self had found a way to do this better than it had 
been done before. What he wanted next was to 
find a way in which to make the pictures of men’s 
voices talk or sing. 

With this in mind he set to work. Sometimes he 
worked all night as well as all day. One day, after 
he had spent many hours in study upon the prob¬ 
lem, he suddenly jumped up and said with great 


A MACHINE TALKS AND SINGS 119 


eagerness, “ At last I can make a talking machine! ” 
Then he sat down and drew the plans on a piece of 
yellow paper, and gave them to his foreman, who 
made a model for his employer. Mr. Edison 
hardly dared hope that the machine would work. 
He spoke into it the four lines of the rhyme that 
every one knows: 

“ Mary had a little lamb, 

Its fleece was white as snow, 

And everywhere that Mary went 
The lamb was sure to go.” 

Then he moved the parts that should be moved 
and waited to see if the words would come back to 
him. This is where he thought that he would be 
disappointed, for no machine had ever been made 
to do this before. 

To Mr. Edison’s surprise, his own words came 
back to him: 

“ Mary had a little lamb, 

Its fleece was white as snow, 

And everywhere that Mary went 
The lamb was sure to go,” 


120 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

To be sure, the words sounded a little harsh and 
indistinct, as if they were being heard from a dis¬ 
tance, but they could be understood, and Mr. Edi¬ 
son knew that his problem was at last solved. The 
only work left to do was to make the new machine 
talk and sing better. 

Mr. Edison named his invention the phonograph. 
The words of “ Mary Had a Little Lamb ” were 
the first that were ever heard from this kind of ma¬ 
chine, but we are glad to know that they have not 
been the last. Since that day hundreds of men, 
women, and even children have had pictures taken 
of their voices. The wonderful machine can talk 
and sing clearly now, and with a sweet tone that is 
pleasant to hear if the speaker or singer has this 
kind of voice. 

With the help of the phonograph thousands of 
people have heard the singing of great musicians 
like Caruso or Galli-Curci. Words of well-known 
statesmen like Woodrow Wilson have been heard 
too. Funny sayings have come from the lips of 
Mark Twain himself. There are rhymes or songs 


A MACHINE TALKS AND SINGS 121 
of school or play-time for the young children, and 
the national airs like “ My Country ’Tis of Thee ” 
or “ The Star-Spangled Banner,” which all chil¬ 
dren like to hear. 

The phonograph which we have to-day is very 
different from the first machine made by Mr. 
Edison in 1877. Other men have spent time and 
money in trying to make it better. 

In the first machine the sound pictures were made 
upon tin-foil. Through the work of two other men, 
wax cylinders came into use, and these could be 
made to do better work. Other changes have been 
made from time to time until we have to-day the 
well-made machine that talks and sings with such 
clearness and beauty. 

People enjoy the music so well that thousands of 
phonograph records are being made every day, and 
in Mr. Edison’s plant alone a whole building is 
given up to this work. This building is always a 
very busy place. In one room a man laughs and 
jokes before a large tin horn. The horn is a part 
of the big machine which is taking pictures of the 


122 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
man’s voice to be made into records that will give 
out the sounds again at some future time. In 
another room two women may be singing a duet, a 
hymn, or a song from an opera. In still another 
room a woman may be telling a bedtime story 
which children will be making their phonographs 
repeat to them at some future day. 

Some children have studied history and know 
many things of interest about George Washington. 
Think how wonderful it would be to be able to 
hear the first President’s Farewell Address in his 
own voice! Or Lincoln’s Gettysburg Speech! 
What child would not like to hear this speech in the 
voice of Abraham Lincoln! Pleasures like this will 
be enjoyed by the children of the children who are 
living to-day, because many of our great statesmen 
and patriots are having records made of their 
speeches. Most of the great musicians are leaving 
records of their work for the phonograph to repro¬ 
duce in years to come. 

Perhaps some child who is reading this book will 
have a record made of his voice at some future time. 


A MACHINE TALKS AND SINGS 123 
If this is true, it will be with the help of the phono¬ 
graph, the wonderful machine that talks and sings 
for us. 


BUILDINGS THAT COULD HOLD THE 
PEOPLE OF A CITY 


O NE day, a little more than thirty-five 
years ago, a great hurricane blew across 
the city of New York. People everywhere were 
frightened, but none were more alarmed than those 
who were around the new Tower Building. This 
building was still unfinished, and was to be the first 
skyscraper that had ever been built in New York 
City. The steel walls of the thirteen stories were 
up, and the roof was about to be put on when the 
great gale struck the city. 

People had been afraid of the new building from 
the very beginning. “ It cannot he made safe,” 
many said. “ It is nonsense to try it,” the man who 
had charge of one of the big newspapers wrote. 
When the building was about to be started, the 
owner came to Mr. Gilbert, who was the architect in 

charge of the work. “ It is not too late to stop the 
124 



The ZR Approaching the Woolworth Tower 








































BUILDINGS THAT HOLD A CITY 125 
work,” the owner said. “ Perhaps we are risking 
too much after all.” 

Mr. Gilbert was sure that the building could be 
made safe. He had figured out just how much 
weight each part would have to bear, and how 
strong it could be made. Then he showed the 
figures to the owner, who told him to go ahead with 
the work. 

When the great hurricane struck the city, the 
building was all ready for the roof. People who 
were on the streets near by hurried to get out of 
reach of what they thought would soon be a terrible 
mass of falling steel. Even the janitors and watch¬ 
men of near-by buildings left their work to get well 
out of the way. 

Mr. Gilbert had a friend who believed in the 
strength of the new building, and with this friend he 
climbed the ladders which stood against the un¬ 
finished walls. The friend went only as far as the 
tenth story. The architect went on until he had 
reached the thirteenth floor, which was the top. 
Here the gale was so strong he could not even stand 


126 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
up. He had to crawl on his hands and knees. 
People who were watching, turned their faces away. 
They thought the building would surely be blown 
to the earth and the two men with it. 

Mr. Gilbert held on tightly to the steel frame. 
Then he dropped the plumb line which he had 
brought with him, and found, just as he had 
thought, that the building had not been moved by 
the strong wind. It was standing as firm as a rock. 

The gale blew long and fiercely that night, but 
the Tower Building was not injured. The man 
who had planned the work had proved to the people 
that the new skyscraper could be made safe. 

Since that time there have been scores of other 
skyscrapers built within the city of New York, and 
many in other cities. It may be that you have read 
of the Singer Building or the Metropolitan. And 
who has not heard of the Wool worth Building? 

The Tower Building, which was the first sky¬ 
scraper in New York City, was made to reach 
thirteen stories, or a hundred and sixty feet in 
height. The Woolworth Building reaches sixty 


BUILDINGS THAT HOLD A CITY 127 

stories, and is seven hundred and ninety-two feet in 
height. There were no fears while it was being put 
up, and even when the strongest gales are blowing, 
people do not hurry away from it. Every day ten 
thousand people are at work within the walls of 
this great building,—as many people as may be 
living in your town or city. Ten thousand peo¬ 
ple is even more than live in most towns and sub¬ 
urbs. 

These people do not stay in the Wool worth 
Building all of the time. Most of them hurry away 
on the subways, elevated trains, and ferries at night. 
A few men, who have no other homes, live in the 
building all the time, and there would be room for 
more to do so if they wished. People could stay 
in the building and have all they needed for a long 
time. There are restaurants, rooms in which cloth¬ 
ing is sold, barber shops, news-stands where papers 
and magazines can be bought. There are even 
mail-chutes, so that the people do not have to go to 
the post-office or to a street-corner to mail a letter. 
They have only to put the letters into a glass tube 


128 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
through which they fall into a mail bag in the lower 
part of the building. 

If one wishes to send a telegram or cable mes¬ 
sage, he has only to press a button and a boy ap¬ 
pears. The boy will take the message to the men 
who have charge of sending them. Telephones are 
found about the building for those who wish to 
make use of them. 

There is electricity for lighting, and steam to 
heat the rooms in cold weather. Electric elevators 
carry the people from one floor to another. Some 
of these are express, and stop only at certain floors. 
All of them are made as safe as possible. Even if 
an elevator should happen to fall from one of the 
upper floors of the building, it would carry the 
passengers to the ground floor quietly and easily. 
This is because of the air cushions which stop the 
fall of the car and make it impossible for it to fall 
to the bottom of the elevator shaft with a crash. 

If you are ever in New York City and can spare 
fifty cents of your spending money, take the eleva¬ 
tor ride to the top of the Woolworth Building and 


BUILDINGS THAT HOLD A CITY 129 
look out upon the country round about, or upon the 
streets of the city. One elevator will take you up 
fifty-six stories. A shuttle elevator will take you 
the rest of the way to the tower, far, far above the 
streets of the city. You will see the people away 
down below, and they will look like tiny ants rush¬ 
ing about in their busy way. It will be quiet at 
this height too. The noises of the streets do not 
reach the tops of the. tallest buildings. You can 
look far out upon the waters of the bay too, and 
can see the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, 
and many other sights that you will remember for a 
long time. 

While you are standing so far above the ground, 
a strong wind will be blowing against you as if it 
would like to blow you over the railing that has been 
built around the edge of the tower. You will either 
be frightened, or you will enjoy the fun and will 
want to stay until you have seen everything. 

Some children are very brave while up on the 
Wool worth Tower. Others are not so brave, but 
all agree that the Woolworth is a very wonderful 


130 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
building, and that the men who have planned and 
built the skyscraper have done a very wonderful 
piece of work. 

When you have seen the tower and the inside of 
the Wool worth Building, and have admired these 
parts, you may be surprised to hear that the hardest 
work is not the building of the walls of steel, nor 
the many hundreds of windows, nor even the tower. 
The foundation below the level of the street has to 
be planned and built with the greatest care. 

The men who built the Wool worth Building sank 
the foundation through one hundred and fifteen feet 
of sand in order to reach the solid rock beneath. 
Sixty-nine piers rest upon the rock. The piers 
are made strong with concrete. Pine trees from 
two acres of a southern forest were used to make 
the piers, and many tons of concrete were used to 
make a strong and firm foundation for the great 
building. When we think of the thousands of tons 
in the upper part of the building we can see why 
the foundation would have to be made very strong. 

The frame of the skyscraper is made of steel. 


BUILDINGS THAT HOLD A CITY 131 

This is lighter than a frame of masonry which was 
once used in all buildings. The steel is cheaper 
too, and takes up less space so that the owner of the 
building can have more room to rent and can earn 
more money. 

The outside of the Woolworth Building and of 
many other skyscrapers is marble, stone, or terra¬ 
cotta. The men who now plan the building of the 
great skyscrapers are trying to make them better 
looking than they used to be made. The Wool- 
worth has a church-like tower for a part of its upper 
stories. This makes the building more beautiful. 
Some of the skyscrapers have not been made to look 
so well. “ They are like huge chimneys,” foreigners 
often say when they visit New York for the first 
time. This is true of many of them. Others are 
being built with decorations of different kinds that 
make them look wider and more pleasing to see. 

Some one may be wondering why so many sky¬ 
scrapers have been built in New York City. One 
reason is because land costs a great deal and is taxed 
very heavily. Men build high up into the air be- 


132 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
cause it is cheaper to do this than to make the build¬ 
ings spread out at the bottom where land costs so 
much. Although the skyscrapers are worth mil¬ 
lions of dollars, the men who put them up get their 
money back in a short time. Mr. Woolworth had 
his building paid for within thirty days after it was 
finished. People are always looking for office room 
in new buildings that are within reach of trains and 
boats. 

If you are in New York City and cannot get a 
view from the tower of one of the skyscrapers, try 
to find some men at work upon one of these new 
buildings so that you may watch them. “ They 
are built over night,” some one has said. This is 
not really true, but there are men who work upon 
the buildings in the dajdime, while there are other 
shifts of men who work during the night. This is 
done so that the building may be ready for renting 
within as short a time as possible. Some of the 
largest are all ready for use within a few months 
because of the work that is done at night as well 
as in the day. 


BUILDINGS THAT HOLD A CITY 138 
Skyscrapers are being built more quickly than 
they ever were before. More and more of the large 
cities are making use of this kind of building too. 
Men have found that they are safe and very use¬ 
ful. 


HORSES MADE OF IRON 


D ID you ever take a buggy ride with an old 
horse to pull you along at a steady gait? 
If the weather was fine, it was pleasant to jog along 
a country road that lay between fields of ripening 
corn or blossoming clover. 

Most children have had rides of this kind and 
have enjoyed them. There was a time when there 
were few other ways in which a child might ride 
unless he chose to go astride a horse’s back or in a 
wagon. 

To-day we have automobiles or street-cars and 
electric trains to take us about from place to place. 
Best of all, we have the railway trains that are 
pulled by the great locomotives which carry us 
along at a great speed, sometimes as fast as a mile 
a minute. 

The locomotives have been called “ Iron Horses,” 
134j 


The DeWitt Clinton,” the First New York Locomotive 



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HORSES MADE OF IRON 135 
which they really seem to be. Like horses they 
need to be fed,—not hay or oats, but great lumps 
of shining black coal. Tons of this strange kind of 
food the “ Iron Horse ” consumes each day, and 
gallons of water. 

While his great appetite is being satisfied, he is 
ready for work. With a roar that can be heard 
near and far, he rushes along, pulling behind him 
heavily laden cars of freight, or passenger coaches 
carrying hundreds of people. He will hurry along 
over thousands of miles, or will stop if his master, 
the engineer, wishes him to do so. 

The “ Iron Horse ” is never told to “ giddap ” 
A lever is moved, and this gives the great beast the 
signal to go on at a certain speed. For another 
speed a still different lever is used. When the en¬ 
gineer wishes the “ Iron Horse ” to stop, he works 
a brake and the train is soon at a standstill. 

When the train is made up of passenger cars, 
people alight at each stopping-place and the great 
“ Iron Horse ” stands panting and puffing as if he 
were out of breath. When the great number of 


136 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
passengers are seen to alight from the train, and 
the scores of heavy trunks and suitcases are un¬ 
loaded from the baggage car, one is surprised that 
the “ Iron Horse ” does not pant and puff even 
more than he does. 

This is where the horse made of iron is different 
from a real horse. He is made to use the power of 
steam, and can do a greater amount of work than a 
real horse could ever be made to do. 

The “ Iron Horse ” is unlike the real horse in 
other ways too. Some real horses know the roads 
along which they must travel. The driver has only 
to rest the reins upon the animal’s back and he will 
reach home in safety. Many horses will stop and 
refuse to run over an obstacle that may lie across 
their path. 

It is not so with the “ Iron Horse.” He will 
run over anything that crosses his path unless his 
master, the engineer, works the brake that tells him 
to stop. At certain places signals must be given 
the engineer to tell him when the track is clear, or 
when the “ Iron Horse ” must be made to stop un- 


HORSES MADE OF IRON 


137 


til he can go ahead in safety. This is always true 
at terminal stations. 

At the terminal of one of the railroads at Jersey 
City there are ten tracks from which trains leave 
during the day and night. Leading to these are 
four main tracks. This part of the terminal is like 
a huge bottle, with the four tracks forming the neck 
and the ten tracks the bowl. Hundreds of trains 
must use the four tracks leading from the terminal 
each day, and there must be no delay or danger to 
passengers who are riding in the trains. 

To keep the trains moving along with safety and 
on time, men in the tower overlooking the tracks 
spend their time giving signals to the engineers. 
With the use of levers worked by electricity, sema¬ 
phores are raised or lowered just as the man in the 
tower directs. These semaphores are sort of arms 
that hang above the tracks,—high balls and low 
balls, the engineers call them. When the arm of 
the lowest semaphore, or low ball, hangs down, the 
engineer knows that he may go along with caution. 
When the arm of the high ball is lowered, the track 


138 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
is clear and the engineer may pull into or out of the 
station without danger of collision. When the 
arms of the semaphores are at right angles to the 
posts, the track is being used and the engineer must 
wait until he is given the signal to advance. At 
night a red light says “ Danger ” when a track is 
being used. A green light means “ Track Clear.” 

As may be easily seen, the engineer who allowed 
his “ Iron Horse ” to speed along without careful 
watching would learn something about a wreck in 
a very short time at a terminal station. 

Engineers are very careful about noticing sig¬ 
nals. They are always careful about keeping the 
“ Iron Horse ” in good working order too. 
Wrecks would occur more often if the locomotives 
were not cared for properly. 

A real horse must be brushed or curried so that 
it may do its work well. An iron one has ma¬ 
chinery that must be kept in good order and oiled 
often. 

You have seen the engineer run along by the side 
of the locomotive with a long-nosed oil-can in his 


HORSES MADE OF IRON 139 
hand. He is very careful to oil the parts that are 
in need of it so that they will work freely. 

Like a real animal, the horse made of iron must 
have its time for rest too. He is driven into the 
roundhouse where he is put into a stall. If he has 
travelled a long distance, the fire in the fire-box is 
put out and he is left idle for a long while. After 
his rest, before leaving the roundhouse again, he is 
cleaned and polished and all of his parts looked 
over carefully. There must be no loose nuts or 
bolts to cause trouble on the road. There must be 
plenty of coal and water too, and dry sand in the 
sand-box. The sand is used on heavy grades, or 
wet, icy rails, to keep the locomotive from slipping. 
No engineer would care to make a long run without 
sand in the sand-box. 

With so many locomotives in use to-day some 
children may think that we have always bad them to 
work for us. This is not true. George Washing¬ 
ton, the first President of the United States, never 
rode in a railway train because there were none in 
the country when he served as President, and there 


140 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
were none in other countries. Some cars were 
made to run along wooden rails in mining regions. 
Coal was often hauled in this way. But it was not 
until the year 1829 that the first steam locomotive 
was used in the United States, and it had to be 
brought over from England because no locomotives 
were being made in this country. 

This steam locomotive was called the Stourbridge 
Lion. It was a low, short locomotive with a tall 
smoke stack, and looked a great deal like the 
Rocket , which was the first good steam locomotive 
in the world. 

The Rocket was made by an Englishman named 
George Stephenson, who was very proud of it, as 
he had reason to be. 

The people of the United States who saw the 
first steam locomotive to be used in their own coun¬ 
try were full of praises for it, as they too had rea¬ 
son to be. The Stourbridge Lion was much 
stronger than the horses that had been in use. It 
could pull a heavy load of coal that would have 
taken many horses a long time to move. 


HORSES MADE OF IRON 141 

But what would George Stephenson and the 
people who praised the Stourbridge Lion think of 
the great locomotives and railways of to-day? The 
New York Central carries passengers over nine 
hundred and twelve miles, from New York to 
Chicago, in twenty hours or less. The Imperial 
Limited, which belongs to the Canadian Pacific 
Railroad, can go from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
Ocean in only four days’ time, a distance of more 
than three thousand miles! 

Stephenson’s Rocket weighed only seven tons. 
One of the largest locomotives now belongs to the 
Erie Railroad in the United States and weighs 
four hundred tons! 

This great monster has already pushed two hun¬ 
dred and fifty loaded cars , and it could be made to 
move as many as six hundred and forty cars! 

The coaches are being made more and more com¬ 
fortable too. The first railway trains had no tops 
at all. The people sat upon seats in the open air, 
so that the dust had a merry time getting into eyes, 
ears, and noses. The wind had a way of trying to 


142 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
blow off children’s hats or carry loose papers high 
into the air. The faster the train went, the more 
mischief the dust and wind could do. People be¬ 
came very impatient about all these inconveniences, 
and every one saw clearly the need of a different 
kind of car. At last covered coaches were made 
and put into use. 

To-day the coaches are very, very comfortable. 
There are cozy chairs covered with plush, and clean 
beds for those who must travel at night. The dust 
and wind have no chance to play their mischievous 
pranks because the coaches are all covered, and 
upon the windows are screens of a kind of fine wire 
through which the dust and wind find it hard to 
force their way. 

Most of you have ridden in coaches of this kind. 
You may have had a meal or two in the dining car 
and you know what good food may be had there. 
Perhaps you have sat upon the platform of the ob¬ 
servation car, which is the last car of the train. It 
is fun to watch the tracks that seem to be running 
away from the train as fast as they can; and there 


The First and Latest Locomotives of the Northwest 




























HORSES MADE OF IRON 143 
may be beautiful lakes, woods, mountains, or val¬ 
leys to be seen upon either side. 

If it were not for the locomotives, the western 
part of our country might be little known to-day. 
Before railroads were built it was a long journey 
across the country to the west, and it was a danger¬ 
ous one. The Indians were unfriendly and war¬ 
like. They did not like the white men to get a 
footing in their part of the country. 

With a mighty whoop, a swinging of tomahawks, 
and a whizzing of arrows, the Indians would rush 
upon the men in the dead of night, or would spring 
out from behind an embankment. If they could 
return to their camps with the scalps of white men 
in their belts, they were very happy. Many a 
white man who dared to make the trip into the 
western part of our country never returned to his 
home again. 

Now people need not fear to make this trip. 
Many railroads have been built, and towns and 
villages have sprung up from the East to the 
farthest Pacific Coast regions. Day after day 


144 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
great locomotives carry trainloads of passengers 
and freight from one part of the country to the 
other with no fear of surprise attacks from hidden 
enemies. 

And what a wonderful work is being done! The 
oranges that are ripened under California skies are 
served upon the tables of the people of New York 
and Chicago. Boots and shoes made in Massachu¬ 
setts are worn by the children of Oregon. The 
people who live in the flat prairie states of Nebraska 
and Kansas can enjoy the beautiful mountain or 
wooded scenery of the East or far West. 

With the help of the “ Iron Horse ” the people 
of the United States are like neighbors who can 
share their good things with one another. 


Brooklyn Brid< 

























AVENUES IN THE AIR 


T HERE was great excitement in the cities 
of New York and Brooklyn on the twenty- 
fourth day of May, 1883. The streets were 
crowded with people who were eagerly pressing 
their way toward the East River that lies between 
the two cities. The people seemed to be happy too, 
while everywhere gay-colored bunting decorated 
the buildings, and the sounds of bands could be 
heard playing military airs and marches. 

Before the sun was high enough in the heavens 
to. show that the noon hour had come, the banks of 
the East River were thronged with people who 
shouted or waved their hats when a great parade 
came marching up to the river. 

The parade was led by two military bands that 
played the most stirring music the people had ever 
heard—“ Columbia, The Gem of The Ocean,” 

“ America,” and “ The Star-Spangled Banner.” 
145 


146 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
Oh, how every one enjoyed the gay music! And the 
parade! What a sight it was! There were sol¬ 
diers in uniform, many of them, and the President 
of the United States appeared, as well as the Gov¬ 
ernor and Lieutenant Governor of the state of New 
York. The Mayor of the city of New York was 
in the parade too, and other important men. Many 
of them were known by the men and women in the 
crowd, who cheered and cheered as they came along. 

And why so many people and such important 
officers and well-known men in a big parade? It 
was the opening of the great Brooklyn Bridge upon 
which men had been working for thirteen years— 
the largest and best-made bridge in the whole world 
at that time. 

Not only this. People who wished to go from 
Brooklyn to New York had been making the trip 
across the water on ferries which were becoming 
more and more overcrowded as the cities grew in 
numbers. In the morning and evening there were 
delays and discomforts which made the trips hard 
for every one. 


AVENUES IN THE AIR 147 

With the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge a new 
way would be provided for the people to go back 
and forth between the two cities. It might even 
make it possible for the two places to be united in 
one larger city at a later day. It was no wonder 
that the people were gathered to celebrate the open¬ 
ing. 

And what a beautiful bridge it was! From a 
distance it looked like a spider’s thread, and its long, 
sweeping lines were very graceful to see. Like a 
real spider’s thread the bridge was made to hang 
in the air. This kind of a structure is called a sus¬ 
pension or hanging bridge. 

The great bridge hangs from four large steel 
cables which extend from the tops of the great 
towers. Each one of these cables is made up of 
more than five thousand steel oil-coated wires, and 
is almost sixteen inches in thickness. If you 
measure sixteen inches across your school desk, you 
can see how strong these cables had to be made in 
order to hold up the great steel bridge which weighs 
thousands of tons, and across which many thousands 


148 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
of people pass each day, and many tons of freight 
are carried. 

All of the people gathered together on that fes¬ 
tive day in May were proud of the work that had 
been done. Most of them knew how to build a 
sort of bridge themselves. They knew how to 
throw a plank across a ditch or stream which is so 
wide that one could not make the opposite side with 
a leap or jump. 

This kind of bridge is easily made, but the great 
Brooklyn Bridge made of steel and concrete was 
not easy to make. It would have to be used by 
millions of people as time went on, and it had to be 
made strong and large enough to carry crowds of 
people at one time. 

The Brooklyn Bridge is larger than any plank 
bridge could ever be made, too. On that day in 
May a man said it looked like “ an avenue in the 
air,” and this is what it really is. Like an avenue, 
there are the street-railway tracks, the roadways 
for wagons or automobiles, and a sidewalk for 
those who must travel on foot. 


AVENUES IN THE AIR 149 

The people who gathered to see the opening of 
the Brooklyn Bridge admired the work of the en¬ 
gineers and their band of helpers, for the bridge 
was a structure of great strength and beauty. The 
parts that were admired the most were the towers 
and cables and the long graceful lines of steel that 
made up the main part of the bridge. Most of the 
people were full of praise for this part of the work 
that could be seen above the water. 

No doubt most everybody overlooked the most 
important part of the work—the part that always 
takes the greatest amount of skill and care in build¬ 
ing any large bridge. This is the work that is done 
beneath the water. 

If there happens to be no rock where the founda¬ 
tions are to be laid, the task is a very hard one. 
Sometimes a large caisson or cylinder with cutting 
edges is forced down into the muddy bottom of the 
river. This large cylinder is closed at the top but 
open at the bottom. Air is forced into the lower 
part of the cylinder with great pressure in order 
to keep the water from getting under the cutting 


150 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
edges. In this lower chamber of dense air the men 
must work. Here they dig and even blast with 
dynamite until they have cleared the river bed of 
loose waste material and made a solid foundation 
for the concrete bridge towers. 

It takes months to place one of the high cylinders, 
and then only the strongest men can stand the work 
in one of them. The pressure of the air is so great 
that the faintest taps sound like the blows of heavy 
hammers, and the voices of the workmen have a 
strange sound like harsh clanging metals. 

When the bed of the river has been prepared by 
the men who work in the steel cylinder, the concrete 
foundations are made for the bridge towers. Some 
men have even lost their lives before this part of 
the work has been completed. The air in the cais¬ 
son or cylinder tires and even injures men who 
breathe it for a long time. Mr. Washington Roeb- 
ling who had charge of the building of the Brooklyn 
Bridge became very ill while directing the work in 
one of the steel cylinders under the water, and never 
became strong enough to walk upon the bridge 


AVENUES IN THE AIR 151 
which he himself had helped to build,—not even 
upon the opening day when thousands of people 
were thinking of his great work and praising him 
for it. The building of the upper part of a bridge 
is a hard piece of work. Mr. Roebling knew this. 
He also knew that it takes greater courage to risk 
the dangers of the work under water. 

The Brooklyn Bridge was a wonderful piece of 
work, with its towers that reach two hundred and 
seventy-two feet above the water, and its long lines 
of steel that seem to leap across the river for a mile 
and more. The bridge is high too. The masts of 
the tallest ships can pass beneath without touching 
any of it. 

Since the bridge was opened there have been 
other large bridges built across the East River in 
New York. There is the Williamsburg, the Man¬ 
hattan, and the Blackwell’s Island. Many large 
and similar structures have been made in all parts 
of the world, with the same skill and care exercised 
in the building of Brooklyn Bridge. In spite of 
this, most of you have heard more about the Brook- 


152 EVERYDAY WONDERS 
lyn Bridge. Perhaps you will wonder why this is. 
It is because it was the greatest in the world at the 
time it was built, and because it united two places 
which are so well known. 

One could tell about many other great bridges 
that are in use now. There are the cantilever 
bridges. The Forth Bridge in Scotland is one of 
these. Perhaps your father or your teacher will 
draw a picture to show how this kind of bridge is 
made. It does not hang from cables like a suspen¬ 
sion bridge. There are main beams, or cantilevers, 
which are supported by towers, with connecting 
spans in between. The Blackwell’s Island bridge 
which crosses the East River in New York is an¬ 
other of this type, and the Niagara Bridge also. 
The Niagara is well known because of the disaster 
which occurred before it was completed. 

This bridge was started in the year 1902. Three 
years later as many as eighty men were at work 
upon it one day when the bridge suddenly collapsed 
and fell into the river. Most of the men were killed, 
and fifteen thousand tons of steel were thrown into 


AVENUES IN THE AIR 153 
a tangled mass which blocked the river all around. 
It was a sad day for many. Besides the loss of life, 
three years of work were wasted because the en¬ 
gineers who had planned the bridge had not made it 
strong enough. 

Since that time the Quebec Bridge has been built 
again. It is a cantilever bridge, just as it was be¬ 
fore, but it is so strong and well-made that it will 
never collapse and fall into the river. 

Some people like arch bridges because they are 
so beautiful. There are many of these in the world. 
There is the London Bridge, the beautiful bridge 
which crosses the Mississippi at St. Louis, and the 
well-made arch bridges of France, Germany, India, 
and Siberia. Those of you who have geographies 
can name many more than these. 

Then there are the bridges that may not be men¬ 
tioned in your geographies. They are the ones that 
are still being used in parts of the world where the 
people are not far enough advanced to be able to 
build better structures. 

Arched rocks carved by the wind and rain are 


154 EVERYDAY WONDERS 

used in some places, and there are the logs that float 

down the streams, making rather uncertain bridges 

as they float along. Giant grapevines that grow 

across ravines are often used by primitive peoples 

too. 

We who live in civilized parts of the world are 
fortunate to be able to use strong steady bridges— 
“ avenues in the air ”—upon which even automo¬ 
biles and street-cars can travel in safety. 



By 

LAURA ANTOINETTE LARGE 

** The Wonder Series 99 
Little People Who Became Great 
Little Stories of a Big Country 
Everyday Wonders 

Such a series fills a very necessary place in a 
child’s life. 

Stories of hero worship, natural wonders, great 
inventions, all make their particular appeal. 

Here is a series covering just these require¬ 
ments beautifully illustrated by photographic 
reproductions — eighteen pictures of men and 
women whom every child early learns to know 
through their readings. A dozen photographs 
of the great wonders of our country and twelve 
views of some of the most notable inventions 
of modern times. 

The text of each volume is adapted to a child’s 
understanding. 

Cloth hound. 150 pages. $1.50 each 




SCOUTING BOOKS BY 

Walter P. Eaton 


The Boy Scouts of Berkshire 

A story of how the Chipmunk Patrol was started, what they did 
and how they did it. S18 pages 

The Boy Scouts of the Dismal Swamp 

This story is a continuation of THE BOY SCOUTS OF BERKSHIRE 
and is an unusually interesting book on Boy Scouting. 310 pages 

Boy Scouts in the White Mountains 

Intimate knowledge of the country as well as of the basic princi¬ 
ples of Boy Scouting characterizes this new volume by Mr. Eaton. 

810 pages 

Boy Scouts of the Wildcat Patrol 

A Story of Boy Scouting 

This story is a continuation of the history of Peanut and the other 
characters which appeared in previous volumes by this author. 

315 pages 

Peanut—Cub Reporter 

A Boy Scout's life and adventures on a newspaper 

A rattling newspaper story with Peanut as the central character 
— he who has figured so prominently in the author's four Boy Scout 
books. 920 pages 

Boy Scouts in Glacier Park 

The adventures of two young Easterners in the heart of the high 
Rockies. The volume gives an accurate and descriptive picture of 
this Park, and might well be used as a guide book. This book is 
illustrated by wonderful photographs. 889 pages 

Boy Scouts at Crater Lake 

A Story of the High Cascades 

A very valuable and intensely interesting story of the experience 
of two boys at Crater Lake Park. Their experiences and adven¬ 
tures will thrill every boy reader, and so accurate is the informa¬ 
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author has been over every foot of it himself. 820 pages 

Boy Scouts on Katahdin 

A Story of the Maine Woods 

A wonderful story of scout life, full of interesting scenes of 
boy activities. Best of all it is an accurate picture of the famous 
Mt. Katahdin, up which the author and his boys climbed. It is 
accepted as being one of the most difficult mountains to ascend 
east of the Rockies. 







BOOKS BY 

Amy E. Blanchard 

Camp Fire and Girl Scout Stories 


The Camp Fire Girls of Brightwood 

A Story ol how They Kindled Their Fire and Kept It Burning 

What the Boy Scout Organization means to the boys. Camp Fire 
Girls means to their sisters. This story shows the development in 
the character of those who made up the organization in the little 
town of Brightwood, their difficulties and triumphs in forming their 
organization, and the experiences and pleasures enjoyed by them 
are woven into an intensely interesting story by an author who is 
devoted to the work. 809 pages 

Fagots and Flames 

A Story of Winter Camp Fires; with colored frontispiece by 
Frank T. Merrill 

This is a companion volume to " The Camp Fire Girls of Bright- 
wood,*' but absolutely independent of it. The author has carried 
along the characters in the former story, bringing into prominence 
the true-hearted country girl, Kathleen Gilman. It is brightened 
with girlish fun and by the ceremonials of the Camp Fire Girls. 

300 pages 

In Camp with (he Muskoday Camp 
Fire Girls 

A Story of the Camp Fire by the Lake. Colored Frontispiece 

Readers of this volume will recognise many of the old characters 
of whom they have read in “ The Camp Fire Girls of Brightwood ** 
and ‘‘ Fagots and Flames." The story relates the experiences that 
attended their life in the open. 318 pages 

A Girl Scout of Red Rose Troop 

A Story tor Girl Scouts 

Every girl who is now a scout, every girl who would like to be a 
scout and is not — will want to read this story by an author who 
herself knows all about scouting 880 pages 

Lucky Penny of Thistle Troop 

A Girl Scout Story 

Penny Atwood, the girl scout heroine of Thistle Troop, is well 
named Lucky Penny, for fortune seems always to smile upon her. 
The story tells of the activities of the girls — glimpses of school lite 
and its friendships, of a bazaar, a Valentine party, a skating carni¬ 
val, and of a little Belgian refugee who won their hearts and made 
a place for herself in their Troop 




BOOKS BY 


Amy E. Blanchard 


Elizabeth, Betsy and Bess 

If there is one thing that Miss Amy B. Blanchard knows well it is 
the child’s heart, and this knowledge stands her in good stead in 
her recent book. The story runs into just such conversation and 
escapades as three young girls are liable to indulge in. Illustrated. 

*84 pages 


Elizabeth, Betsy and Bess — School¬ 
mates 

This is the story of the school days of the three girl chums and 
shows the individual development of each one. Every chapter 
is full of the interesting experiences dear to the hearts of girls of 
this age. Illustrated. 3*0 pages 


A Girl of ’76 

About Colonial Boston. Cloth. 

A story of the earlier period of the Revolutionary War written 
primarily for girls, and the homes and heroines depicted are drawn 
so as to give peculiar interest to its readers. 

831 pages 


A Little Maid of Picardy 

A story full of adventures in the life of a refugee maid of Picardy. 
An American girl with the love of France in her heart tells this 
wonderful story of hardships, yes, and pleasures as well, of the 
heroic refugee. Illustrated with colored frontispiece and cover. 

8*0 pages 

From Tenderfoot to Golden Eaglet 

A Girl Scout Story. Illustrated and with colored Jacket. 

A real Girl Scout story for every girl, whether a Scout or not. Full 
of life and fun from beginning to end. A true glimpse into tha 
thoughts, efforts and activities of a genuine Scout Patrol. 

317 pages 

Becky—A Story 

A sweet lovable girl is “Becky” and to read about her and know 
her will be a great pleasure to any girl. So natural, so full of girl¬ 
ish interests, so true to the best in her and still just ' Becky. ’ It's 
worth five ordinary girl’s books. MO pages 














































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































